So you're back for another chapter, huh? That's good. I like it when people read my stuff. OK, ready for the story? Here you go. Enjoy…
Disclaimer: I don't own Spiderman but I do have a certain Spidey doll I won over the summer at the beach…I guess that should count for something…
Spiderman stood frozen in place as the blades of the helicopter beat in a stealth-quiet hum, its brilliant spotlight still trained directly down into the alley onto the cornered superhero. The Kevlar geared assault team had lowered their weapons from their eyes from sighting down the scope, but the deadly cross hairs of the guns were still aimed in his general direction from their chests, their fingers hovering just above the trigger.
Staring in disbelief at the female soldier that had spoken to him, Spiderman demanded loudly, stunned by her words, "What do you mean it's part of me? How could that thing be part of me?!"
Spiderman heard the sharp cocking of guns all around him as the level of his voice took on a slightly hostile tone in his excitement. Checking himself for his unnatural outburst, Spidey felt his spider-sense tingle to life as half a dozen red dots swung about to aim directly at his chest and back, the soldiers around him training their laser scopes for a quick take down.
"Whoa! Whoa, you guys! Calm down!" Spiderman hastily called out, his hands held up before his chest in a sign of surrender. "I'm one of the good guys!" he added as a reinforcing afterthought.
He could almost feel the tension in the small alleyway raising as the soldiers stood motionless, their guns unwavering. The hovering helicopter's soft thumping of the air made the only sound in the still silence. 'I'm in so much trouble,' Spidey thought apprehensively.
He was cornered in a narrow space and wounded to top it off. He could feel the muscles in his shoulders and arm cramping in pain as blood continued to seep through the claw wounds inflicted by the creature. If he tried making a break for it, he would probably be shot down before he could even snap off a web line or climb five feet off the ground.
"Stand down!" suddenly came an order, carrying the force of undisputed authority.
Spiderman sighed deeply in relief as the soldiers slowly dropped their weapons to their sides. Turning towards where the order had been shouted, the wall crawler recognized the woman that had spoken to him before.
"Thanks…I guess," he mumbled cautiously to her. He still didn't know who these people were or why they had suddenly attacked him or, more importantly, how they knew about the spider monster.
"Did you see where the creature went?" the woman asked in a demanding tone as she stepped closer to the masked man inside the ring of armed men, "We need to know incase there's still a chance to track it down."
"No," he answered truthfully, "It disappeared so fast, I didn't even realize it was gone until I heard you guys coming." In answering, Spidey suddenly realized his spider-sense had kicked in just before the creature had made its get away and the mysterious soldiers had appeared; meaning he wasn't losing his powers. But why hadn't his sixth sense reacted when he had been fighting the monster and rather to the assault team?
He had no time to ponder the question further before the female soldier frowned in clear disapproval, saying with a sigh, "Dammit. We almost had it tonight." Her agitation seemed to be shared with the other heavily geared men by their sagging body language.
"Who are you people?" Spidey again asked in confusion, "And why do you think that thing's part of me?"
Glancing around the alley, sizing up the area in careful scrutiny, the woman stated, "It's too long to explain here. We don't want anybody seeing us. You'll have to come with us." Turning to her troops, she called out, "Team Beta return to base. Team Alpha will stay and escort Spiderman and I back to the lab. And I want a sample of that," she ordered as she pointed in the direction of the white glob of material that was still suctioned to the brick wall and had been spat at Spidey by the creature minutes earlier.
In immediate military fashion, the group of six armed men quickly divided in half; one half leaving the alley in a swift single line, the other three unmoved from their positions around Spiderman. One of the remaining soldiers broke away from the group and began carefully scooping the sticky goo into an empty capped tube which he produced from within his protective vest.
Taken aback by the rapid flow of action streaming around him, the wall crawling superhero felt the sudden feeling of inferiority. Whoever these people were, they were good. And they had already managed, in less then five minutes, to make the seasoned crime fighter feel like an amateur.
The female soldier, seemingly satisfied with her teams' efficiency, said into a small microphone attached onto the side of her dark helmet which she pulled towards her mouth, "Ground Team to Air Team Gamma, we're ready for pick up."
Above their heads, the helicopter that had been silently hovering swung lower over the alleyway. As the web swinger looked up, the huge spotlight was suddenly extinguished, letting the darkness again swallow the alley in its jaws. Blinded, Spidey hurriedly blinked back the white shadows that spotted his vision and let his eyes adjust to the night's twilight.
From above, several leg harnesses descended quickly from the side of the copter to dangle in waiting for the guards and Spiderman. Flicking the microphone away from her lips, she then turned to Spiderman as though he was finally worth her attention, "Ready to go?"
"Hey, wait a minute here! I'm not going anywhere with you until I have some answers. Who are you people? Where's this lab you want to take me to?" the young superhero cried in exasperation and frustration, waving his good arm in a wide arch before his body towards the remaining soldiers even as he kept his throbbing forearm tucked protectively against his body.
"I told you there's no time right now," the woman answered curtly, becoming slightly annoyed by the web swinger's reactions, "You'll have to trust me. I promise we'll tell you everything, but we need to get out of here before the police or anyone else discovers us."
Looking around at the heavily armed guards surrounding him, Spidey realized he really had no choice but to cooperate with them. If he wanted any explanations as to what was going on, he was going to have to play along.
"Fine," he finally sighed, "But before I go anywhere I want to at least know your name."
Surprised by Spiderman's request, the female team leader stated after a pause, "Audrey. Commander Audrey Lee."
"My name's Spiderman. Nice to meet you," the web swinger said playfully in attempt to break through the icy exterior of his armed guard. Met with only a glare of even more annoyance by the team leader, Spiderman slowly realized his new acquaintance was not easily won over. "You must be the hit of all the parties, I'm sure," he quipped despite another nasty look.
Turning her back on the costumed crime fighter, Audrey seized one of the dangling harnesses and aggressively swung it towards Spidey. "Hurry up and put this on," she stated coldly as the wall crawler gingerly accepted the harness from her.
Stepping back a pace, she swept her eyes critically from head to toe of the brightly garbed, bleeding man holding the helicopter harness confusedly in his hand. "We better get those wounds of yours patched up before we get there. I don't want you bleeding everywhere."
"Thanks for your show of concern…" Spiderman muttered as he clumsily mimicked the other guards around him as they slipped their legs deftly through the straps of their harnesses. Working with only one good arm kind of crimps ones motor skills.
Pulling the last of the straps securely in place, he was quickly reeled off the ground into the hovering helicopter. Spiderman cringed at the thought of what he would soon learn at 'the lab.' He didn't know if he really wanted to know what Audrey had meant when she had said that the creature he had just fought was part of him…
********
Spiderman's boots squeaked loudly with every footstep as he followed Audrey through a vast maze of white washed hallways. He had no idea of where he was, except that he was somewhere outside of the main hub of the city. After climbing into the awaiting helicopter, the young crime fighter had found that there were no window inside the main body of the copter, cutting him off from the outside world. Even the cockpit and pilot had been closed off from his view by a thick partition of metal.
The journey had taken less than twenty minutes as they flew swiftly over the city. But Spiderman couldn't begin to estimate how far away he was from Manhattan. The minute he had stepped aboard the copter, he felt like a pair of blinders had been shoved over his eyes.
None of the remaining masked guards had spoken even a word as they sat motionless in the rear of the vehicle, their heavy guns laid across their laps, ready for immediate use if the situation called for it. Each had stared through the dark visors of their concealing helmets, silently watching their guest's every move. Even though his help had been asked by these mysterious people, Spiderman felt like he was their prisoner.
Despite the intense atmosphere enveloping him, Spiderman had felt no tingle from his spider-sense, slightly soothing his well founded uneasiness even as he had noticed one of the soldier's finger gently poised over the trigger of his gun aimed in the web swingers general direction.
Audrey had kept her word, and had personally bandaged his wounded shoulders and arm with a well equipped medical kit stored in the helicopter. Besides a few inconsequential exchanges while she had patched the young superhero up, the woman had given Spidey no more information about where he was going or who exactly had him securely in their control; only that everything would be explained later.
Now flanked on both sides by his armed escorts, Spiderman silently padded closely behind Audrey as she stalked gracefully down the vacant hallways they walked through. Even with her cold façade, the blond leader seemed to be the only one not out to immediately blast him to pieces.
Pulling his gaze back unsuccessfully from searching for any clues as to his whereabouts in the faceless corridor, Spiderman called in a hushed voice against the steady tromping around him, "So…Audrey, are you ever going to tell me where we are? I think I've been pretty patient so far. How about a few answers?"
Swiveling her head to look over her shoulder, Audrey responded, "You're not going to have to wait much longer. We're here." Stopping in front of one of the doors that dotted the sides of the colorless hallway, she pressed a series of buttons in form of a code into a small keypad on the wall beside the white door.
As the door slid aside to admit the group, Spiderman stared in awe. Around him in the vast white washed room that lay before him, was the largest accumulation of scientific equipment the studying college scientist had ever seen. Particle accelerators, atom slicers, and a top of the line electron microscope were only some of things he recognized off the top of his head. Much of the other mechanical devices looked like something straight of some sci-fi movie.
"Wow…" he muttered enthusiastically, wide eyed as he looked around like a kid in a candy store. Spidey, forgetting his armed escorts exclaimed, "This has to be the best equipped lab I've ever seen!"
"Glad you like it," came a voice from off to his side.
Spinning around in surprise, Spiderman saw a portly man striding towards him from across the wide expanse of tiled floor. Donned in a white lab coat that proclaimed his profession, the man whipped a pair of glasses from his coat's pocket and pushed them up onto his pudgy nose.
"Good evening, Commander Lee," he said with a tight smile to Audrey as he came to a stop beside the group, "I'm surprised to see that you've brought a guest." nodding his head towards the superhero. After a lengthy caesura, he gave Spiderman a glance out of the side of his coke bottle glasses with his calculating eyes and asked in a more serious tone, "We're you able to recapture the creature?"
"No," she answered with a deep frown and shake of the head, "We had picked it up on our sensors only a few minutes before arriving on the scene. It had managed to escape"-here she cast a nasty glare towards the by-standing wall crawler- "before we got there. We found Spiderman there, injured. Because of the situation, I thought it would be a good idea to bring him here."
Nodding in understanding, the sandy haired scientist sighed, "You did the right thing, Commander. Did you explain anything to him?"
"No. I thought I'd leave that to you," the young woman stated as she pulled her heavy black helmet from her head and ran a hand through her flattened dishwater blond hair.
As she combed her fingers through her shoulder length hair like a brush, Spidey realized Audrey was probably not much older then he was. He also realized, the female guard looked much more attractive now that her helmet had been taken off. She reminded him a lot of Mary Jane with her simple girl-next-door looks yet very beautiful all the same. Her body was the next thing he noticed. Even beneath several thick layers of SWAT gear, Audrey looked like she possessed a thin, gymnast like body; muscular but not obnoxiously so.
"Good. Good," the scientist responded with a small nod again, pushing his glasses further up his nose. Glancing at the three guards that still stood at attention around the web swinger, he said, "You can leave. But will you stay, Commander? I'm sure Spiderman will need your assistance if he agrees to help us later."
Nodding in affirmation, Audrey and the man waited patiently until the remaining armed men left the room, the door sliding silently close behind them.
Turning to Spiderman who looked as uncomfortable as a fish out of water in the strange lab while they had talked about him as if he were not there, the scientist said, "I'm sorry for all this. I'm sure all this has been very unnerving for you."
"You can say that again," Spidey exclaimed, shifting his weight uneasily between each foot.
"Well, I'm sorry again for this, but I'm sure you understand the need for security," he apologized sympathetically, "My name is Doctor Ed Jordon. I'm the head scientist here." In saying so, the man extended his right hand in the form of a friendly handshake which the wall crawler took and returned warily.
"So are you finally going to tell me what the heck's going on around here? In the past hour I've fought some strange monster that looks like me, been kidnapped by a bunch of secret service members, and been taken to some weird lab," Spidey recounted.
"First of all, the ones that brought you here are hired mercenaries, not part of the secret service," Jordon corrected, "Second of all, that 'monster' you fought is a genetically engineered human-arachnid hybrid."
"Oh, well that just clears up everything!" the web swinger stated in full blown sarcasm as he waved his hands in the air for more effect.
Nonplussed by his guest's frustration, Jordon continued, "You're currently in the research lab of Omni-Troy. We are a privately owned lab that specializes in the research and development of cures for diseases and we work in the research of genetics and gene therapy treatment for certain medical ailments."
"OK, so how does this spider-thing fit in with you guys?" Spiderman questioned, "Are you working on some kind of mutant research?"
"No. But I'm getting to all that," Jordon stated patiently as he motioned Audrey and Spidey to follow him deeper into the cavernous lab. Working his way towards the back of the lab, the group came upon a large, circular area which lay behind thick panes of glass in the very center of the room. In a way, it looked like some kind of high tech containment area that spanned from the floor all the way to the ceiling twenty feet above.
"What's that?" the wall crawler asked curiously as he walked up to it and peered inside over the waist high, steel lined bottom. Emptiness met the young superhero as he slowly walked the perimeter of the circular chamber that was at least twenty feet in diameter.
As he finished his circuit, Spidey came across a section the glass wall with a gaping hole smashed into the side. The hole was at least a normal human being's height and just as wide. There were no shards of glass on the ground or anywhere nearby, meaning the damage had happened some time before, allowing time for clean up.
Coming to a halt beside the missing section of glass, Spidey ran a gloved finger along the edge of the jagged break. The edge was at an angle inclining inward, attesting that it had been smashed from the inside out.
"That would be the holding chamber for experiment 427," Jordon responded as Spidey cast him an expecting glance for an explanation.
"And what exactly is experiment 427?" the wall crawler questioned further.
There was a pause as Jordon and Audrey exchanged a secretive glance. "Ummm That's where you come into the picture…." the scientist answered finally in hesitation. Spiderman felt his stomach drop at this. It seemed he was going to finally get the answers he'd been searching for. But was he ready for it?
Walking over to a nearby computer chair stationed beside a desk piled high with meticulously stacked papers, Jordon started slowly as he flopped into it, "I'm sure you remember two months ago when you were shot by that assassin…"
"Yeah…That's kind of stuck in my memory," Spiderman affirmed, suspiciously. What did his having been shot have anything to do with a twelve foot spider monster running amuck?
"I'm sure. Anyway, after hearing about your unfortunate situation, one of our lab technicians was sent to retrieve a blood sample from the scene of the shooting. I don't know if you're aware of this but from what the technician said, you had to of lost over three liters of blood. By that fact alone, you shouldn't have survived to be here talking with us now…"
Pulling himself back on track, the scientist continued on, "At the time, we wanted to research the blood sample to uncover the secrets of your…unique powers and amazing strength. After hearing how you had stopped the terrorists shortly after being critically wounded, we realized you must have an amazing recovery and healing rate."
"After preliminary analysis, we discovered there was an almost unlimited supply of genetic material in the sample that could be used in finding cures for medical problems for some bone deficiency diseases, certain forms of cancer, and almost anything else you can think of."
"Hey, now don't get too carried away or all this may go to my head," Spiderman called out with a forced chuckle, half embarrassed by the man's statements of his amazing healing abilities.
Ignoring the comment, Jordon continued, "We took the remaining sample of DNA and attempted to cultivate it. Unfortunately, the sample was degenerative by that time and we had to synthesis several complete strands of pure human and spider genetic material into it to fill in the gapes of the DNA sequence. In doing so, we created a kind of human-arachnid hybrid."
"Whoa! Wait a minute! You're telling me you tried to clone me?" the web swinger cried, surprised and appalled by what was being told to him. A streak of anger shot through Spiderman at the thought of his own blood having been taken without his consent and then cloned. How dare they do that. But as much as he wanted to just let himself become overtaken by his rage and feeling of violation, he knew getting angry would not help the situation at all.
"In a way," the scientist answered almost proudly of what he had accomplished, oblivious to his guest's feelings, "The very first attempt at cultivating the hybrid proved successful, which was a complete surprise. Most of the time, it take hundreds of tries before the zygote survives past the first few stages of cell divisions."
"Only the result was something we had never expected. I assume you met your significant other earlier tonight… We were able to study it for several weeks before it managed to escape from it's containment chamber five days ago. After the creature escaped, the Omni-Troy labs hired Commander Lee and her team to retrieve it. It's extremely strong and agile and we haven't been able to recapture it even with this highly equipped mercenary team on it's trail."
As Jordon finished his last sentence, Spiderman suddenly felt overwhelmingly sick to his stomach. Leaning back against the cold glass that remained as the walls of the cell, the sickened superhero had to take several deep breaths to compose himself and fully process the information just told to him. The thought of a hybrid clone of himself stalking the city and kidnapping innocent people was almost too much for the young wall crawler to comprehend.
Breaking through Spiderman's shocked state, Audrey finally spoke since Dr. Jordon had taken over the conversation, "You've seen how fast that creature can move, Spiderman. We need your help. We've had no luck even catching up with it until tonight. It may have gotten away, but you managed to hold it off for a time. We detected the whole fight on our sensors in the copter. We have to recapture the thing soon, or it may be too late. You may be the only one that can help us, since it was grown from your own DNA."
Pushing himself out of his chair in a heaving roll, Jordon added, "Please, Spiderman. We need your help. We need to hurry and recapture it before it's too late."
"Too late for what?" Spiderman asked almost afraid of what could be the answer.
Again, the portly scientist and soldier exchanged glances. Sighing, Jordon spoke up, "Before the creature escaped, we had reason to believe that it was about to reproduce- asexually that is. I believe that the kidnappings that have been occurring around the city are because the creature is preparing to feed its young. I'm not sure in what manner it will spawn, but it will probably lay somewhere between 100 to 200 eggs since it seems to have physically inherited its more arachnid traits."
"We estimate that the eggs could be laid within a day or two by the intensity the creature has been hunting. But it's also possible that it may have already laid them. It's uncertain how soon they may actually hatch because of the incomplete research of the hybrid, but if we don't want hundreds of these things overrunning the city, we have to act fast" Jordon finished with a sorry shake of his downcast head. Looking up into the shiny eyepieces of Spiderman's mask, he asked pleadingly, "Will you help us?"
The masked man stood there motionless as the other two stared expectantly at him, waiting hopefully for his answer. Part of him wanted to just walk away and leave them to clean up their own mess. Let poetic justice be his revenge. But he knew he couldn't. Taking a deep breath, the wall crawler said slowly, "If what you're saying is true, then it's almost my responsibility to find it. It was made from my DNA, so I have to help stop it."
"Then we're going to have to hurry," Audrey agreed, "We'll have to work together if we want to capture it in time."
"What's your best estimate on how long we have, Doc?" Spidey asked the scientist as he turned to look out into the empty glass tube that had housed the creature. He inwardly cringed at the thought of hundreds of spider-monsters like what he had just seen that night swarming the city, killing and eating innocent people unfortunate enough to be caught in their grasp.
"From the last batch of data taken from the creature before it escaped, I would say two days at the most."
"Then we have our work cut out for us…" Spiderman muttered quietly to himself.
To Be Continued….
Come on, I hate having to beg for reviews. So humor me and tell me what you think. Please? Oh, and before I forget, thanks to all yinz that have reviewed so far! Next chapter should be soon…hopefully.
-LAXgirl