MCU/Earth-1999999 is owned by Disney/Marvel Studios.

Kamala Khan was created by Sana Amanat, Jamie McKelvie, G. Willow Wilson, and Adrian Alphona.

ARC I: In The House Of Flies

OSCORP Medical Research Technologies Headquarters, Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday, December 1, 2015

"Welcome, students, to one of the most advanced medical research facility in the world."

Kamala Aisha Khan stood in a ultramodern yet minimalist lobby large enough to fit several fast-food franchise buildings inside as the fifteen-year old young woman found herself doing a slow spin to see it all. Her AP Chemistry Class at Coles Academy High School had lobbied for a field trip for its students, the secondary magnet school located in Jersey City able to secure a business that certainly was recognizable in both name and importance. OSCORP Medical Research Technologies was the premiere medical research facility in terms of pharmaceuticals, medical apparatus, cutting-edge surgical technologies, and especially in fields such as genetic therapy and artificial auto-prosthetics. Its founder and Chief Executive Officer, Norman Virgil Osborn, was the forefront in creating and synthesizing cures for many maladies throughout the world, was the fount of cancer research, and had recently developed a means of creating artificial limbs out of carbon fiber and plastic that had an interface that would actually interact with neurological stimuli, known affectionately as the 'auto-prosthetic' by its creator, Doctor Otto Octavius. A field trip by a highly-regarded magnet school whose students were accepted through a placement exam and its classes generally having the terms 'Advanced Placement' as a prefix was a way for the medical corporation to show off, to give a taste to the students in question what their future could be like if they applied themselves.

"Today," Doctor David Lowell continued as the tour guide of the group of fifty students who stood in the lobby of the medical research corporation, "we'll be taking a tour of our facility and our departments. And while we at OSCORP do offer public tours for men and women to both show off what we do as well as as what we might be capable of one day, you will be getting a more intimate, behind-the-scenes look at our laboratories, research departments, and development labs. After all, one day a few of you might wish to apply here after college." Coles Academy was considered one of the best High Schools in America, and graduated one-hundred percent of its students thanks to its teachers, tutors, academic programs, and assistance courses. Generally, just about every student that went to Coles would likely be an honor roll student in any other school, public or private, but the academic curriculum and competition was much stiffer. One didn't pay a tuition to get into Coles Academy; one earned their way through merit.

Like Kamala had.

"Did you hear that, Bruno? We're going into the monster rooms!" Kamala told her best friend Bruno Carrelli with glee as the fifteen-year old young man looked her, slightly amused.

"Pretty sure they don't make monsters here, Kamala." The young man replied while rolling his eyes. "I'm certain all those health warning stickers and bio-hazard signs are really meant for the equipment that they use and the medical waste baskets, not for strange carcinogenic and radioactive materials."

"Yeah, but just think of it! Stick your hand in mystery pot number one…" Kamala began with pretend wonder.

"…and come out with a lizard arm?" Bruno answered, making the young American-born Pakistani woman laugh in response. "It would be cool to see how they do it in real-life. Probably about as exciting as it is in school; sitting at a desk and wondering what Chemical A will do when mixed with Chemical B and, poof!, no more eyebrows!"

"Now if you all follow me," Doctor Lowell said as he began walking backwards towards a set of double doors guarded by a turnstile and a pair of beefy-looking men in security uniforms, "we'll take you to the first part of our tour where we'll show you the pharmaceutical research and development lab and give you an idea just how so many prescriptions and pharmacological drugs have been made for the various diseases and maladies of the world. If you could please all keep together and make sure you keep your visitors' badges with you," the young Doctor held up a white plastic badge on a lanyard around his neck to emphasize what he meant, "and I'll take you to 'Phar and Dee'."

"Geez, I hope the pills work better than his puns." Kamala muttered at the bad R+D reference, Bruno choking back a laugh as they followed the group of fifty students that were conglomerated and following the Doctor in a loose fashion as they began to slowly feed through the electronic turnstile for access, the students swiping their card over the electromagnetic reader to give them access as well as logging them in, Kamala and Bruno entered through the turnstile somewhere a bit ahead of the middle of the pack as a horde of teenagers slowly invaded OSCORP with three teachers and a Doctor herding them in the appropriate direction.

The double doors were opened by the first of the students to reveal a hallway that wasn't the common sterile hallway look that one saw in hospitals, but instead had carpeted floors, wood paneling upon the lower section of its walls, sterile Plexiglas windows for viewing into the departments, and promotional posters upon its off-white walls. Kamala found herself walking down the hallway where several of the clear thick Plexiglas showed the interior of a healthy-sized lab about half the size of a basketball court. Gone were the misconceptions of mad scientist labs and strange beakers filled with caustic chemicals, instead the laboratory was well-lit, contained stainless steel tables with laptops, several dry-erase boards with chemical formulas written on its surface, and a singular containment unit in which two protected openings meant for manual manipulation were present. Not one person inside the room was trying to pour chemicals into beakers at all.

"Now, I know what all of you are thinking! Not exactly want you think of when you think of chemical combination, medical pharmaceuticals, and testing, right?" Doctor Lowell quipped with a jovial tone, facing his youthful audience. "Gone are the days of some scientist or researcher taking a chemical or series of chemicals and mixing them together and seeing what the result is. Years of Hollywood movies show dingy dungeons and laughing villains creating samples of potent mixtures, but this is what the modern science lab looks like. The computers we have in this lab are probably familiar to you gamers. Can anyone see their labels?"

"They're Alienware gaming laptops!" Kamala piped up, seeing the iconic 'little green man' logo associated with extraterrestrials (before May Eleventh, at least) and the company the specialized in creating high-performance laptops with interests in graphics and frame rates.

"That's right." The Chemist replied with a smile. "Almost all initial testing and development happens in the digital world, be it chemistry to space flight. What this does is eliminate several safety issues as well as practical cost problems of ordering expensive equipment and materials with the possibility of not knowing what the end result might be. Today, you write up the possibility of a formula, and you test it digitally through a series of high-speed processors and several terabytes of medical diagnostic information and history. When a series of tests have been done with all known probabilities mapped, then we go into physical testing, which you can see with the Hood unit there that looks like a nuclear enrichment chamber.

"The sterile environment, as well as the vacuum," the Doctor continued, "gives us the best possible results because accidents involving contamination and foreign substance involvement have eschewed results and nearly ruined production of pharmacological prescriptions that you likely know the names of. This not only saves us on time and waste, but this means that the end result will be a drug that is needed without the heavy cost added to it from expensive R+D in the past. OSCORP, like any business, needs to make a profit in order to continue. But Doctor Osborn and Doctor Stromm, the founders of this company, realized that a successful prescription that is more affordable will tend to sell many more units than a more expensive drug offering similar results. And as we like to say in the medical industry, we want return customers." Kamala groaned at that as she looked at Bruno, who was hiding his smile and chuckling at the bad pun. "So for those of you who like their expensive laptops and know a thing or two about gaming and development, there's actually a future for you in this industry due to the fact that we run a great deal of high-end computer equipment. Someone has to test all that sweet gear and work all the bugs out, after all."

"That's cool." Kamala's best friend said beside her in a whisper. "If you're not making your own computers, you're using what's on the market. Someone's got to program the interface to work with the equipment. Can you imagine the IT Department here?" Computers and hardware were more Bruno's speed, the young man having a real knack with computer science. While Kamala tried her hand at various things, anything from helping Bruno with his personal projects, trying her hand at making comics, and even fanfics, she was most certainly into the teenage fascination of social media and the internet. She was actually going to try her hand at coding and developing Apps, having seen many turn into blockbusters such as mobile phone games and music streamers.

Like most teenagers, Kamala's cell phone was pretty much her life, and her Samsung Galaxy hosted a sixty-four gigabyte micro-SD card to make room for all her music, pics, videos, shorts, Apps, and games. Anyone that had anything to do with the internet or computer software would certainly look into the many programs being developed and released on a seemingly hourly basis where such concepts as InstaGram, Twittr, and had barnstormed their way into popularity with the concept of shorter is better (making the young woman label post-Millennials Generation #TL,DR!). Computer programming looked to be the profession of the future, and certainly something Kamala had an interest in. Her blogs, videos, and fanfic were pretty popular.

After the first lab involving what was pharmaceutical research and development, the next lab was production, which was, no surprise, an assembly line of pill-making efficiency where several machines were used to turn the ingredients and combinations into a belt stuffed full of colored pills that worked its way through the assembly to be dropped into bottles with labels and caps. Doctor Lowell explained that the bottles were distribution bottles, not prescription bottles; these were the ones shipped to hospitals and pharmacies so they could be dolled out by licensed pharmacists. It made sense, and Kamala tried to keep her interest on something that seemed rather benign and straight forward as they moved from the pill assembly to the next assembly; injectables.

The miracle of amazingness was a bit lost despite the mass production of medicines and cures that would have been a Godsend a century prior due to the fact that it was so commonplace and streamlines, seeing little glass vials being filled with clear fluids and labeled for what they were. Doctor Lowell spoke of Doctor Alexander Fleming, the man who created penicillin, and how the first surgery, an eye surgery, had used a quarter of the worlds' supply of the anti-bacterial medicine; twenty-five milligrams. Kamala knew that penicillin came from bread mold at a certain stage, and before World War Two literally had to be grown to create it. Now it was synthesized and mass produced, given as an injection or as a pill. While it was kind of cool to see the assembly line, all one could see were little bottles being filled with clear liquids. While the wonder and excitement of mass producing seemed defeated by the clinical process of the assembly line. Still, the process created what looked to be thousands of vials of medically-needed vaccines, booster shots, injections, and inoculations not only for America, but very likely around the world. It was still amazing in that sense.

"Moving along," Doctor David Lowell continued as the tour moved deeper into the facility, "the next portion of our research is our cutting-edge genetic therapy research and development laboratories." That had Kamala perk up as she looked to Bruno, who was grinning ear-to-ear as well. "This is where we work on therapies for maladies such as sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's Disease, and various cancers for new ways to find either effective cures or treatments to help people who suffer from a whole host of conditions. If you could look here," there was another large pane of glass separating the tour from the lab, "you can see where doctors and medical scientists work with DNA strands and retro-viral therapy to help combat diseases and afflictions that normal medicine can't touch. Now I know the term 'genetic therapy' sounds exciting, right?" There was a bit more than a lackluster response from the fifty students in front of him, Kamala certainly getting a bit of a flashback from the old movie Jurassic Park. "Most genetic therapy involves either enzymes, biologically-produced chemicals, or anti-retroviral therapy which involves grown strands of RNA, which is…?"

"Ribonucleic Acid." Kamala produced after a second or two silence from everyone.

"That's right." The Doctor looked at her with a pleased smile, making the young woman blush a little as Bruno elbowed her a little and said good job. "RNA is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. In tech talk, it operates as the same function as a computer code, giving orders to the body through genetic code instead of a digital one. Both RNA and DNA are nucleic acids, and along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates, proved the four major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life. The difference between RNA and DNA is… what?" Again, another question.

"RNA is a single strand, folded in half where as DNA is a paired double-helix strand." Bruno popped up with the answer.

"Very good. What we do here," the Chemist waved to the window and the workers inside, "is create beneficial synthetic viruses that aren't to make people sick, but instead help them get better. A retrovirus will insert a copy of its RNA into a host cell's DNA, mutating and changing the genome of that cell by using enzymes to produce DNA from the RNA genome, which is backwards from normal cells and viruses, thus retro." Doctor Lowell's tone was pretty excited, actually. "What happens then is that the host cell treats the viral DNA as part of its own genome, transcribing and translating the new genes along with the cell's original genes, producing proteins to make new copies of the virus. While the more well-known retroviruses do include the HIV Virus as well as many cancers, we have been developing retroviral therapy that designs enzymes that prohibit replication and reproduction. That;s actually how we help save lives for those with HIV and also mitigate spread. We even employ zoologists and botanists to help us find enzymes within the animal kingdom and plant kingdom to help us find ways to make advancements and treatments for maladies that plague mankind."

"I feel sorry for the poor mouse that gets a syringe full of octopus enzymes because it might help with memory loss." Kamala whispered to her friend, who snorted and snickered softly at the thought. Mankind had been using floral extracts for medicine for literally millennium; some of the ancient ones such as feverfew and St. John's Wort had actually be scientifically tested and proved to do as advertised (so to speak). And one of the biggest advancements in medicine had actually come from cows; the Smallpox vaccine was eventually formed when it was noted that dairy farmers and maids seemed much less likely to contract the virus due to the fact that cow udders produced a similar yet weaker strand that helped give milkers an immunity. Advancements in chemistry, production manufacturing, and computers had elevated such breakthroughs to a global level where some of the worlds' most dangerous diseases had been contained or nearly eliminated. Kamala moved towards the window where she could see several people working at different stations, most of them working on computers that were linked into large incubation bays where a manipulator arm was either sampling a substance or adding them. Again with the sterile environment, the young woman noted as the students filed by the window to look within.

"Moving on," Doctor Lowell spoke up after a few minutes of observation, "we're going to go to our next department that generally has everyone worried. Not because of its dangers, but because people having issues with the thought of testing and experimentation outside of a petri dish but can't think of any other way to test and develop pharmaceuticals. If you'll follow me…"

"I'm going to show you the animal testing lab."

Surprisingly, what Kamala Khan and forty-nine other students from Coles Academy High School didn't see was a large room filled with cages stuffed full with adorable pets. Times had changed.

Animal conservationists, animal testing protesters, and picketers had finally had their day in the sun in concerns of medical research, testing, and experimentation when it came to pharmaceutical trials before moving into what was generally called 'the human phase'. Like most medical developments, clinical creation of pharmaceuticals was all theory until someone went and put it into a living human being. While such things had happened in the past (usually away from prying eyes and a boat load of implausible denials), the next step had been animal testing. Animal rights activists had won on certain fronts concerning what animals were being tested, moving away from primates, the closest cousin to Homo Sapien, towards other animals. Everyone had seen TV shows involving cute white little mice doing tests, mollifying all but the most ardent of activists considering mice bred very fast, in large numbers, and had a short lifespan. The problem was, as the saying went, was that the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry. The problem being that mice weren't men, and the genetic difference meant that while most medications and pharmaceuticals were found within tolerance due to rodent testing, there was still a difference.

OSCORP had delved deep into the animal kingdom… and found an acceptable, albeit unusual, alternative.

Steatoda nobilis. Otherwise known as the Noble False Widow.

"They're using spiders for testing?" Kamala looked to her friend Bruno Carrelli, who looked as shocked as she felt. Not because they were horrified by the thought of a cute, cuddly bunny being injected with God knows what. A look at the large lab past the protective window showed thousands of little plastic cages that were filled with a little bit of dirt and lawn debris… and a tangle of webbing usually in a corner of the one cubic foot cage. No, the surprise was the kind of species they were using. No one ever claimed that a spider was cute, cuddly, or adorable. It was the fact that testing was being done on insects. Like, when did that come up and someone else think it was a good idea?

"Now, I know what you're thinking," Doctor David Lowell said as he stood in front of the tour of teenagers, who certainly gave the Chemist their attention. "You were expecting mice or rabbits, right? Testing was done on those species in years and decades past due to their fertility rate and ease of care. But mice and rabbits are rodents, and don't share too many genetic similarities to us. Mind you, I said genetic similarities. Who can tell me who the the closest-related cousin to the human being is?"

"The Pan troglodyte. The Chimpanzee." Kamala offered, knowing that answer. The Robust Chimpanzee was known for its tool-making and usage, creating colonies, and even being able to learn simple American Sign Language. As a species, they had a lot of similarities to humans.

"Very good. Now, obviously, we aren't using chimps for testing." The Doctor tutted at that. "While the Chimpanzee is our closest-related cousin at the genetic level, tests and research showed that there are animals out there with similarities that can be used. For instance, pigs have a very similar composition in terms of flesh with humans; thickness, density, and sensitivity. If this were a cosmetic company, a skin care company, or a tattoo parlor, you would be seeing piglets."

"That's kinda cruel." The young woman told her best friend, who nodded.

"Some other animals have shown to have similarities at the biological level that we use not only for testing, but for medications as well." The Chemist continued, boggling Kamala. "There are proteins and enzymes that are similar in several species under certain testing and reactions. And surprisingly enough, we found our answer in Entomology."

"I guess Peter Rabbit, Mickey Mouse, and Miss Piggy are breathing a sigh of relief." Bruno quipped, making Kamala chuckle a little.

"While I'm not going to say that spiders are genetically close to us, what I will say is that their reactions are very similar, but slower." Doctor Lowell explained as his hand swept across the scene behind them. "We can test bacteria and viruses on a spider and see the process at a quarter of the speed that we would see in a human, their biological process more simple yet more robust. Likewise, our work with medications, boosters, and vaccines have nearly doubled in effectiveness thanks to several different types of insects, being able to study the process with a greater amount of time available. That flu shot last year that was distributed for autumn? Tested on spiders."

"Damn." Bruno whistled out.

"Yeah." There was also the addition that no one was going to cry about insects being injected with God knows what. Probably easier to maintain than mice. Bred faster and with higher populations as well. Just throw some flies in the cages and that would literally be it.

"There is also the added benefit of seeing different protein strands and enzymes in the works that have shown response in clinical tests with chemical bonding and anti-retroviral therapy, some protein strands being simpler yet larger for some of the older species." The Doctor was on a roll, and nobody looked bored. "Toxic species tend to be much older on the geological scale, venomous species secreting enzymes and toxins that breakdown cellular tissues and processes. We are actually looking into those same proteins for different ideas and forms for cancer research and mass tissue growth…"

"Did he just say they're going to be injecting people with rattlesnake venom to kill cancer cells?" Kamala was stunned. While that wasn't what the Doctor said… it came out something like that.

"Um… yeah." Bruno was right next to her on the emotional level. Both were riveted. And likely equally a little horrified. Thing was, Kamala was actually interested in seeing if that was a possibility. That be a hell of a leap in medical technology if something made to fight of carcinogenic cells came from jellyfish venom or some secretion from a tree frog. That would be wild. Okay, maybe OSCORP wasn't jumping off the deep end if she was getting little goosebumps at the thought of seeing something like that coming true. It gave her a little bit of a thrill, honestly.

"…and here we have our test species where we've been cultivating them for protein and enzyme extraction." The Chemist was continuing on where the next window was where there were fewer plastic cages. "While we can synthesize most of the proteins and enzymes to near-natural levels, we've found that the real deal is unfortunately hard to fake. So with cultivation, diet, nutrient supplements, and insectoid growth hormones, we can produce more of the natural extracts we need for our research."

There was a moment of dead silence before…

"Dude, did you just say you're making super-spiders?" That was the resident meathead jock, Josh Campbell. Thing was, that was the exact thought Kamala was having. Probably everyone else, too.

"While I wouldn't call them super-spiders, they have been biologically cultivated to create a superior specimen of species for extraction so we can test the extracts for anti-viral therapy." Doctor Lowell replied calmly. That theory had been used in plants for generations; taking bigger plants and pollinating them for better yield. Same with horse breeders and dog breeders. Insect breeding and a regimen of steroids? That was a first.

"If one of them breaks out, pull the fire alarm and call the Avengers." Kamala whispered to Bruno, who just snickered. "Insectoid growth hormone? I'd love to see that on a resume."

"Don't see that on Discovery Channel." Her best friend agreed. "Can you imagine that at a stockholders' meeting? 'We've successfully created the Super-Arachnoid. Watch the stocks soar'." That had Kamala snickering that time. "I just want to see the lab meeting where a few drunk scientists were telling Star Trek jokes and got around to the drunken science ideas when the teleportation and light speed discussion ran out and moved to crazy shit we can do to bugs."

"I know, right?"

"Moving along, we'll be going to our next department… which will be distribution. If you could all follow me…" The tour moved on as inside the animal testing lab, one of the researchers collected a False Black Widow spider from one of the plastic cages, taking an empty syringe and pushing the needle into one of the engorged glands of the spider and began extracting fluids.

The tour continued on through the OSCORP Medical Research Technologies Headquarters as fifty students from Coles Academy High School made their way through the building, the tour showing over two dozen different departments ranging from medical technology advancements, cancer research, emerging software, and even its computer technologies department that made cutting-edge diagnostic equipment and monitoring stations.

For the corporation, the tour was a success in showing off young, able minds what the future held (and any who wished to take part in such endeavors), no doubt adding to its prestige by having a bunch of social media-active teenagers spouting off what they had seen as free advertisement. For the school, the tour was a success in that it had got to showed its students real, viable fields that they were studying in, washing away some of the old concepts of what a science lab once looked like and instead gave them something new to behold and wonder. For the students themselves, the tour was a success because it got them out of classes for a while, while at the same time showing them something that hadn't imagine. No doubt once they left the building and their cell phones were returned (as they weren't allowed inside the building for information security purposes, of course), their thumbs would be at full-speed ahead on such digital media as FaceBook, InstaGram, Twittr, and SnapChat. The main architect of the idea of having High School students from a magnet school tour the facility, Chief Executive Officer Normal Virgil Osborne, had been counting on it.

One didn't get ahead in business playing it safe, after all.

As the tour wound down and the students were herded back to the entrance of the Headquarters, one gentleman was waiting in the lobby for them to exit the secured area for a farewell speech. Donel Menken, the personal executive assistant to Doctor Osborne, waited for the students to fill the lobby for his small two-minute speech. It was in a company's best interest to keep face in public affairs, to give their corporation the best light possible for all the endeavors that were entailed inside. OSCORP, after all, employed thousands of doctors, scientists, researchers, technicians, specialists, and security officers. Good business meant solid stocks, strong sales, and happy employees; the basic business model for any public business and corporation. As the students mingled in front of him, Donel gave his short speech thanking the attendance of the students, the support of their school, and that he hoped that one day some of them might wish to seek employment with them. It was a no-brainer speech that was still a necessity; there was a reason stores had greets at the doors to welcome and give farewell to customers, after all.

But that wasn't the only reason he was there.

As the students went to leave the building, Donel did the so-called politician thing and pressed the flesh; he shook the hands of each student, thanking them for their time. It was a good way to show the next generation what manners looked like and felt, some engaged with the simple act while others brushed it off. Still, each student had their hand shook and their attendance recognized as Donel Menken's eyes absorbed fifty faces for something that would catch his eye.

That one.

Coles Academy was a part of the New Jersey Public School System, but with different rules. Being a magnet school, it's mission was to take on students with higher grades who passed the acceptance exam to enter into its better-funded program. The stipulation was that its attendance had to equal. Coles Academy was perfectly ethnically diverse with an even amount of all races within its student body, though most every private school accepted such things even if the numbers weren't necessarily there. It was a program that was not only to bring equality, but teach it as well, where co-mingling of different cultures and thoughts was to be beneficial. For the most part, it worked out rather well.

That was the student body. Classes tended to be populated by grades, the scoring kind.

Of the fifty students that were in the Advanced Placement Chemistry class, fourteen were of Caucasian descent, thirteen were of African descent, thirteen were of Latino descent, and nine were of Asian descent.

That was forty-nine. One wasn't like the others.

And that was the one Donel Menken chose.

As he shook hands with his right hand, as was proper, in his left hand was a new form of auto-injector, a form of subcutaneous injection that didn't use a needle, instead giving injections with air. What made this different from other auto-injectors was its size; to everyone else, it looked like a class ring. It was built for making discrete injections; a government-sponsored contract with the Central Intelligence Agency as the agency formerly known as the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. It was used both as a tool of assassination and emergency inoculations, to cut down on size and obviousness of a needleman. Donel wore it on the ring finger of his left hand, where one would expect a wedding band. When he shook hands with the other students, he only used his right hand, as most would expect. Yet when the one he had noticed, the one that stood out from all the others came to him somewhere in the middle of the pack, he shook her hand with both of his hands, right and left. When he clasped the back of her hand with his left, the ring touched the skin and injected one cubic centimeter of its contents past the skin and into one of the many capillaries contained within. The one he shook hands with hardly noticed, a bare minuscule wince coming to her face for the barest of moments before he thanked her for her attendance and moved on. No one noticed that he had used both hands to shake her hand and no one else's.

And when the students went back to their Bluebird Bus with the words 'COLES ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL' stenciled on its side, Donel Menken went to the top floor of OSCORP Medical Research Technologies Headquarters, where he entered into a well-furnished room where a mid-50's man worked behind an oak desk that contained a great deal of modern technology within its sculpture.

"Is it done?" Doctor Norman Osborne asked, looking up from his computer screen as he reviewed the daily progress of the company.

"It is done, Doctor Osborne." Mister Menken replied, making his boss smile softly as his hand swiped at something on his screen, pushing away his current work as he leaned back on his office chair.

"Good. Did you pick a good candidate?"

"I did. She will be… easily followed." Donel replied as he pulled out his Apple iPhone and connected to the internal servers of OSCORP, pulling up security footage from the initial security check-in where each student had a picture taken along with their names printed upon their visitor badges. He found the one in question easily; he had selected her for that ease of identification as oppose to one of the others, which might have led to a wrong guess. Finding the visitor badge that contained the girl's name and picture, he turned his phone over to the Doctor to show it to him. "She will be a good test subject. I picked her just in case there were similarities in others and we made a wrong identification. She was the most unique of the group, answered several of the tour guides' questions, was actually actively listening, and… she's a Muslim." That had Norman looking from the phone to his personal assistant. "If it goes wrong, well… they wouldn't be looking at pharmaceutical companies, would they?"

"That's certainly a valid point." The CEO of OSCORP replied, looking back at the photo in the phone. "Put tracers on her name, her social media accounts, her cell phone, and any other administrative accesses she has; bus pass, ferry card, Starbucks' card, Apps, the works. She makes a move, makes a purchase, makes a stop, tweets drama, posts a photo, I want it copied, saved, and referenced."

"We're already halfway there." The cell phones that had been kept safe and secured had been a joke; each had a tracer kernel installed thanks to all the phones having wireless fidelity and automatic uploads and downloads thanks to the relative easiness to hack into a cell phone, the operating systems of Samsung and Apple a joke. With the young woman's name, likeness, and cell phone within their grasp, following her would be easy. Not that they wouldn't take it seriously; a great deal was riding on this, after all.

The only way to conduct human trials was to have waivered volunteers of questionable health and lifestyle who would blurt and sue despite non-disclosure agreements… or to get creative.

One didn't get ahead in business playing it safe, after all.

Author's Notes: While this was a bit of a spontaneous idea, most who have read Ms. Marvel comics will know that Peter Parker and Kamala Khan have swapped bodies before, with Peter Parker's brain in Kamala's body and vice versa, each teaching the other how their powers work. While Kamala did discover that Peter Parker was Spider-Man (and yes, she told Peter who she was), both forgot the others' identity when they switched back.

I mention that Doctor Otto Octavius created the 'auto-prosthetic' (a pun from 'Otto Prosthetic'), and this is a reference to Earth-1610/Ultimate Universe in which Doctor Otto Octavius created automated prosthetics to supplement his failing body with autonomous mechanical devices. I like this explanation than the Earth-616 one (or the one from the seconds Spider-Man movie with Toby McGuire), and will run with it.

I do insert Earth-1218 (that's us!) things to flesh it out as well as not having to remember all the silly play names Marvel came up for things so they didn't get sued. Because I don't have money anymore (thanks, Tony Stark!).

Doctor David Lowell is, in fact, an Earth-616 character who worked at OSCORP. He would later become Sundown and developed the Photogenesis Project (which was a way to gain superpowers through photosynthesis. No, this makes no sense to me either; standing in sunlight doesn't charge me up like Superman, either).

- A Chinese-based program that eventually merged with some other media that is today now TikTok. They share the same premise of short videos (usually karaoke-styled music videos).

Generation #TL;DR! - To follow the whole colloquialism of 'naming' a generation (Generation X being Sixties, and Generation Y being the Eighties), I told my kids (specifically my young teenage daughter) that she was part of Generation Hashtag Too Long; Didn't Read. She thought it was hysterical (and true) and we ran with it. I, of course, hail from the Alt-Grunge Generation.

Doctor Alexander Fleming and Penicillin - While a couple other people were researching molds and came across the native penicillin strain, it was Doctor Alexander Fleming that first used the idea of the anti-bacterial mold that one can get from bread as an agent against infections back in the 1920's. When bread goes stale and starts getting green mold on it from its yeast, that bad mold. Later on, you can see it start turning blue; the yeast has been 'eaten' by that new mold. Between the green and blue mold, you will see a little white circle that borders it. That white circle is the native penicillin mold, and it use to be that it was scraped off for use. In World War II, mass production involved lots of stale bread and yeast cultures before the pharmacology company Pfizer discovered how to artificially create it in more numbers.

Deep Blue Sea - I make a bit of a silly reference to this movie with Kamala's comment about having octopus enzymes help with memory loss. The 'plot' of this movie was that sharks had an enzyme in their cerebellum that could help reverse Alzheimer's in humans, but of course because it has sharks (and due to genetic alteration, genius sharks), shit goes awry.

Best-Laid Plans Of Mice And Men - Actually, the original is 'best-laid schemes', written by Scotsman Robert Burns… in Scot Gaelic.

The Noble False Widow - an introduced species across Europe, North America, and South America, (it is indigenous to the Canary Islands), the False Widow is an invasive species; introduced to a new environment with a negative impact. The Widow is a close-contact predator that uses an 'attack wrap' strategy to immobilize prey, and then bitten to induce paralysis. They are active day and night, indoors and outdoors, and can be found from the sub-tropics to the sub-arctics, and seem to thrive in dry conditions (they don't drink free liquids, instead they imbibe from their prey). The webbing is extraordinarily strong even amongst other spiders, seen as an irregular three-dimensional tangle of silken fibers (generally called a scaffold web).

While I've been a lifelong fan of Spider-Man, I was also born in 1982, when the comics had been out for twenty years. Now… I've never heard of a plausible explanation as to why someone had a radioactive spider, why it was bombarded in the first place, who was responsible… any of that. Later on it was explained with the origin of Cindy Moon/Silk (in 2014) that someone was using some sort of radioactive ray at a science exhibit and a spider was bombarded before biting Peter Parker and then Cindy Moon. Because having radioactive equipment in a science fair is totally the moral thing to do.

I made my very own assassination weapon; a poisoner's ring that's a subcutaneous auto-injector!

I made Norman Osborne Norman Osborne. He doesn't need a glider and some flashy pumpkins to be an a-hole.