Part Three- Bad Hostage Material
'Bzzzzzzbrrbrbrbrrrr. Bzzzzzz. Brrrrr.'
Five-year-old Jamie Griffin waved his G.I Joe doll over his head, circling it around the strip of black velvet he was using as the main runway of the international military airport he'd created on the living room rug. A stuffed cow sat against the couch, a pair of walkman headphones pulled over its felt ears.
'Ground Control Cow, come in Ground Control Cow. Bzzzz. Brrbrrr. Splash!'
'"Splash"?' said his mother, walking through from the big open-plan kitchen.
'He went in the water.' explained Jamie, waving a crayon-stained hand at the G.I Joe, now face-down in the middle of a blue patch of rug.
'I see, honey. Do you think Escher knows you're using her scarf?'
Jamie's button nose wrinkled with the effort of thought. 'Maybe.'
'I wonder where she's got to, anyway.' Suzanne Griffin sat down on the couch, undoing the buttons on her smart charcoal jacket. 'I told her to come straight back after work. What's happened to your sister, huh?' She reached down and tousled her son's hair.
The little boy picked up the toy cow and started to tie it up in the headphone cord. After a moment a delighted grin spread across his freckly face.
'A monster got her!' he giggled.
'Now, Jamie, you shouldn't say things like that. If a monster really got her, you'd feel really bad, wouldn't you?'
Jamie considered. This was the sister who'd once, aged twelve, tried to put him in the washing machine 'to see if he'd fit.'
'Nope.' he said.
His mother opened her mouth to rebuke him, but the sharp buzz of the doorbell cut her off. She got up and walked through the primrose-painted hallway, unlatching the dead-bolt from the polished pine door.
'Escher? Did you forget your…'
The two policemen who stood in her doorway shuffled back respectfully as she opened the door.
'Mrs. Griffin?'
It seemed to Suzanne that everything was suddenly too bright. The muted colours of the men's uniforms wavered in front of her eyes, like heat-haze on a highway.
'…Yes?' she said.
'It's about your daughter.'
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
It was getting dark. Which was to say, the pertpetual gloom in the abandoned warehouse was slowly being replaced by an inkier shade, and the sky that Escher could see through the holes in the distant roof was fading from gold to grey.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Escher was bored again, bored out of her skull. She'd had to shift position on the floor a dozen times as pins and needles had set in, and as the hours had dragged on, she had turned out her pockets in an attempt to find something to take her mind off her predicament. The search had uncovered three paperclips, the biro, half of a Hersheys bar, and a little green rubber ball that she'd got from a quarter machine at the swimming pool. This she was bouncing against the wall, catching it in both hands, again and again.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Over in the alcove, the laptop had powered down of its own accord, the screen black and silent. Her captor, what little of him could be seen behind the chair back, seemed to have simply fallen asleep bent over the desk. She could see his right hand hanging down alongside three of his metal arms, which were completely still, their heads draped across the floor around the chair. The fourth, however, continued its ceaseless scanning, though it showed no further interest in her…
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
…or the noise.
THUNK.
Thrown too hard, the ball hit the wall and bounced off at an angle. She snatched for it, but it missed her hands, rolling across the grimy floorboards towards the desk. She could just make out the bright shape of it as it stopped against one of the resting tentacles with a faint resonating dink.
'Whoops.' murmured Escher. The arms were stirring now, not just the one but all of them, the lights at the centres of their heads appearing with the opening of each claw. In the red glow they cast, she saw the figure shift as he woke up. Lifting his head, he turned to look down at the little green toy on the floor.
'Uh…' Escher wasn't quite sure what to say, especially when she saw the man turning towards her, his expression lost in the scarlet-tinged shadows.
'Can…can I have my ball back, please?'
There was a long pause. Then, slowly, deliberately, one tentacle inclined and picked the ball up carefully in its articulated fingers.
And crushed it. Bits of crumbly green rubber pattered on the floor. Escher stared, and then to her own surprise felt a childish surge of anger, the universal rage of you-broke-my-toy that is capable of making grown, intelligent men hit people with tyre irons because they ran into their new car.
'Hey! That was mine!' she yelled.
The figure made a movement which might have been a shrug, and turned back to the desk. But Escher discovered that the anger, though brief, had taken most of her fear with it. She waited a few minutes, and then cleared her throat.
'You're Doctor…Octavius, aren't you?' she said, cautiously.
In his chair, staring at the blank computer screen, Doctor Otto Octavius frowned. Truth be told, he hadn't heard anyone call him by that name for nearly two months. In fact, it had taken him a moment to recognise it.
'Or do you, uh, prefer "Doctor Octopus?" That's what they always use in the paper and stuff.'
The answer, when it came, was short and dismissive. 'I don't care.'
'All right…then I'll go with Octavius.' Escher continued, deciding that getting any response at all was a good sign. 'I mean, the whole "Octopus" thing always seemed sort of uhh...stupid. To me. No offense,' she said nervously, 'but I've seen an octopus. It's like a bag of fishy Jell-o with suckers. You…um, you don't look much like one.'
'Thanks.' Sarcasm.
Escher watched the back of the chair for a while before adding; 'You know, with you having eight limbs and everything, you're really more like a spi-'
There was a sound like someone kicking a hornet's nest. Before Escher could move, a rattling blur hurtled out of the shadows around the desk and slammed into the wall by her left ear, showering her with plaster dust and splinters.
Gasping, shocked, the girl crouched back against the wall, shielding her eyes from the settling debris. A shadow fell across her as Doctor Octavius rose, one tentacle sweeping the chair aside like it was made of paper. He was at least six feet from the floor, and his voice was a scream in every respect but that of volume.
'I am NOTHING like a spider.'
Escher was trembling, feeling sick, cold sweat beading the dust on her forehead. Stories and adventures were one thing. This, this horrific nightmare of a situation, this was quite another. It was far too real and terrifying and she wanted it to stop.
And so, with the sort of logic that comes only to the truly desperate, she did the stupidest thing she could think of.
'…'m…not…suh-scared…of you...'
Oh, wonderful. Ten out of ten, Escher. How…and her inner critic hunted for the most demeaning word possible…plucky. Famous Five standard. Hurrah for you. Now, which limb do you think you're going to lose first?
He landed, stooping, petrifyingly close. Escher tried to hang on to what was left of her composure, but when a claw snaked to her face and tilted her chin, a gulping choke of a noise escaped her.
'Oh, no?' he said. 'Your pupils say otherwise.' There was a low sussuration from one of the lower arms. 'And we can hear your heart from here.'
There was a grim pleasure in his voice. Her face still held fast by the cold grip of the metal fingers, Escher looked into his eyes and saw nothing there, nothing she could appeal to. Cursing the naivety that had made her try to talk to this monster, she opened her mouth to say something - anything - to placate him.
'You can't hurt me, you sick jerk. I'm not much good as a hostage if I'm dead, am I?'
I did just say that, didn't I? thought Escher, vaguely. It was my voice and everything. Wow. I'm screwed.
Doctor Octavius stared at her. From his expression he seemed more taken aback than anything else. The claw that had been holding her face withdrew, absently.
Then…
'Heh. Heheh.'
Turning abruptly, he walked away, the arms swaying gently behind him. At first, Escher didn't understand what she was hearing, but after a few moments realization dawned.
Doctor Octavius was laughing.
'Hhehrr. Hehehrhhaahahahh.'
Escher felt her scalp prickle. It was quite possibly the creepiest sound she'd ever heard. Her face must have betrayed her revulsion, because as her captor swung back to face her he fell silent, his mouth twitching into a sudden grin which was about as genuinely good-humoured as a lawyer's handshake.
'You misunderstand your purpose, girl.' he said. 'You're not a hostage. You were, but now you're just an irritating by-product of my continued freedom.'
The four sinuous shapes that curled from his back clicked and hissed. Doctor Octavius stopped dead, his head tilted slightly on one side, and for the second time Escher got the distinct impression that he was listening to something.
'The only reason you're still alive,' he continued, at length, 'is that killing you would give me more problems than I have answers for right now.'
The grin remained. It was, Escher decided, marginally worse than the laugh.
'But I'm working on it.'
She waited in the softly-lit apartment bedroom, looking without watching at the flickering images on the screen of the cheap rental TV. Behind her, the long curtains of the balcony window fluttered in the cool night breeze, wafting the muffled sounds of the street below into the small room. The thick sheaf of paper that lay propped against her knees tugged at her fingers, trying to riffle over.
MJ sighed and tried once again to apply herself to the script. She had to learn it for tomorrow, for the audition that might just be her next big break, would be her next big break if she could read her lines for just a few minutes without being distracted by the window. Some nights, it seemed to her that the open panes contained a huge, sucking void, a space that pulled relentlessly at her, a stage entrance waiting for the arrival of its star player.
Some nights, however, she just hated the draught. She understood the neccessity of leaving it open - the memory of what happened the night she'd arrived at the apartment and, alone and forgetting, closed it, wouldn't leave her in a hurry - but tonight she was wearing a sweater and she still had goosebumps. In summer too.
But it was worth it…
And then he was there, a blaze of red against the muted walls of the apartment, one gloved hand reaching up to pull the mask back as the other found her waist. MJ stood up, the script falling forgotten to the floor.
'Peter…'
Peter Parker closed his eyes as his girlfriend touched his cheek with her hand. 'Hey, MJ.' he murmured into her hair. For a moment the two stayed still as statues, lost in each other's touch. Then MJ pulled back, a faintly accusing look in her eyes.
'You said you weren't planning on doing…it…this afternoon. I've been here since three.'
He blinked, taken aback. 'Didn't you see the news?'
'No, I've been learning lines. Why?' MJ asked. Noticing her script lying scattered on the rug, she knelt and started to shuffle the annotated pages together.
When she looked up again it was to come face to face with a crumpled page of newsprint, the cover of the Daily Bugle's evening edition. The entire layout, give or take an inch of space in the margins, had been given over to the display of three massive words.
DOC OCK BACK
the headline screamed, with trademark subtlety. The subheading, set in red ink to one side, added;
EIGHT-ARMED MENACE SNATCHES GIRL
Peter sat down heavily on the end of the bed, turning the page over in anxious hands. 'I was tailing a cop car when they got an alarm call from the museum…you know that special exhibit they've got there?'
MJ nodded silently, still trying to fight off the sick lurch her stomach had given when she'd read the headline. Yes, she knew about the exhibition all right. She knew because Peter had been to see it five times, to her knowledge, and had managed to drag her along twice. Otherwise she would have been very happy never to hear it mentioned again. More than almost anyone, MJ understood her boyfriend's love of everything scientific, but there were limits.
'Well, I went on ahead, but by the time I got there, it was too late. I tried to get in from the roof, but before I could open the air duct,' he pulled his red-gloved hands apart in a slow, drifting expansion, 'boom. Must've been rigged to cause a diversion, 'cause everyone had already been evacuated. So I had to pull back, make sure no-one was hurt…And then he came slamming out, threw a car right across the street. I think he was probably planning on having a lot more time in there before people started to panic, I mean, there are some eyewitnesses who were inside, but they're pretty confused…anyway, the exhibit is safe, which is-'
MJ shook her head impatiently. There was only one thing she wanted to know. 'But did you see him, Peter?' she asked, vehemently. 'Was it really him? Is he really back?'
He sighed. 'Yes.'
'How?'
'I don't know, MJ!' Pulling his costume off over his head, Peter reached for a clean t-shirt that was hanging over the bedstead. 'He didn't give me any time to talk.' Wincing, he traced the line of a long abrasion that ran across the left side of his ribs. 'It was like…the way he died…or we thought he did…it was like it never happened.'
She snorted. 'Well, according to that slimeball Jameson, it never did happen.'
'He just wanted to fight, or get away, or both, I don't know. I managed to wear him down, but then he saw this girl…'
MJ listened, her expression troubled, as Peter described the nightmare hostage situation that had developed on the rooftops that afternoon. His fists clenched, nails digging into palms as he told her how he had eventually been forced to stand there, seething with frustration, as those tentacles had disappeared from view, grasping the limp body of their young prisoner like a ragdoll. How he'd felt worse than useless, letting the man go as the police helicopters buzzed impotently overhead.
'Hey.' said MJ softly, after he'd finished. 'You did everything you could have done, okay? It's no use beating yourself up over what you couldn't do.' She gave him a wry smile, running a gentle hand across his scraped ribs. 'Looks like you've got people queueing up to do that for you anyway.'
Peter smiled despite himself, allowing her to take the paper from his nervous fingers, which had begun to shred it. Closing his eyes, he pictured again the impassive, calculating expression he'd glimpsed just before his adversary smashed through the stairwell glass to grab the kid. As if she was a tool, nothing more than a useful advantage at best. And, at worst, collateral damage.
'Doctor Octavius gave up his life to save the city, MJ.' he said.'But the man I had to fight today…'
The Bugle's bold headline shouted accusingly up at him from his girlfriend's lap. He sighed again.
'…I don't think he remembers that.'
booo-yah. it is very difficult trying to write a conversation between two characters, one of whom should by all laws of common sense be too scared to talk, and the other of whom should be naturally inclined to ignore everything they said anyway. they thwart each other at every turn and no conversation can get off the ground and blahhh. makes my head hurt actually, trying to make something interestin' happen while still keeping both i/c. but is fun. it is now half eleven pm, and i'm'a go eat froobsters. laterskater.