Thank you to all the people who reviewed (Agent Silver reviewed thrice and Karina of Darkness reviewed twice, bless them)
Now for the story...In the last chapter, the rumors wereconfirmed, Doc Ock found out about his son, and Austin was kidnapped! In this chapter...Austin does the unthinkable! Now read, for God's sake...and don't forget to review!
Chapter 4: Tentacles and Voices
It was November 3. After a very long helicopter ride, Austin had been taken to what looked like a derelict warehouse, but was actually clean, orderly, and pretty cool on the inside. Austin didn't know it, but this was once New York City's Pier 56.
Pretty cool for a supervillian's secret lair, anyway.
It wasn't like Austin had been mistreated. Although it was forbidden for him to go out of the warehouse during daytime, he got to eat whatever he wanted and he got to rent movies sometimes. He even got some new clothes that were more appropriate for the New York City winter. One of the things in the shopping bag was a long black leather trench coat.
It's probably stolen from somewhere. Austin thought. No way in hell am I wearing that. But when temperatures reached the low forties the next day, he quickly changed his mind about the coat. His father was pleased, although Austin thought he merely looked like a younger, taller, skinnier, extra-arm-less version of his father.
At night, when no one was watching, his father took him to see the sights of New York City. Austin saw the Statue of Liberty, Broadway, the Empire State Building, and they even left two roses at Ground Zero. (Which led to a long talk on his father's dead wife, and the red rose tattoo on his forearm. He missed his wife, and who could blame him?)
It wasn't that bad, actually. Though it did creep Austin out one night when he woke up to find four red eyes staring at him.
Get a hold of yourself, they're not staring at you, Austin told himself. They're just machines on my father's back. They can't stare at you. Nevertheless, Austin rolled over.
With a cold metal poke in the ribs, Otto woke up at dawn in his recliner. He'd let Austin have the bed.
I know you don't sleep, but I need to!
There is no food in the cupboards, Father.
There is nothing for you and your son to eat.
The stores aren't even open.
We could sneak in, smash the windows, and grab some things.
No! No crime, you hear? We're going to go in and buy it like a normal person.
That's boooooring!
My son is here! I want to set a good example! No crime, you hear?
Yes, Father, they chorused. Like kids being chewed out after getting caught with their er, pincers in the cookie jar, their master thought with a chuckle.
Father! Number Three's picking on me!
Just like little kids.
Austin woke up to find his father gone and a heavy downpour of rain and hail outside the window. Should he make a break for it? No, he would just get lost. Or with rain like that, drowned.
Austin went to get a drink of water. On the way, he nearly tripped over something on the floor.
What the--! He thought. He bent over to look at what he had nearly broken his neck over. It was a trap door handle. Slowly, Austin pulled it open, then climbed down the ladder.
Austin felt for the light switch, turning it on. What he saw amazed him. Here was a playground beyond his wildest dreams—a fully functioning laboratory, with state of the art scientific equipment.
All of it probably stolen, Austin thought with a smirk. He decided to look around. He played with the computer. He looked inside the desk. He inspected the machines.
Austin pulled out a drawer, staring at the worn set of green and orange tights that flopped out. Ugh. With that color combination, it's no wonder people think he's nuts.
Then something caught his eye. Like something deep inside his mind spoke to him. He walked to an object across the room, draped over with a blue sheet. Trembling, Austin pulled off the sheet.
The duplicate set of arms were much like his father's, but they were shiny, streamlined, and silvery, and trimmed in a metallic blue where his were trimmed in yellow.
So he's not entirely a lost cause when it comes to color, Austin thought. Then he did the unthinkable.
He pulled up his t-shirt and snapped the harness on.
The artificial spine unfurled and attached itself to Austin's back. Austin gasped in pain (pleasure? It was hard to tell which) as the needles went in. "So this is what power feels like," Austin said, catching his breath.
He practiced picking things up with them, then decided to take them off. He planned to put them in his duffel bag to take back to California. If he did it right, he could study them and make significant advances in bionics and maybe even spinal replacement.
But of course, nothing ever goes as planned, does it?
A lightning bolt, as if Someone up there was punishing Austin for his presumptuousness, tore through the wiring of the warehouse, causing a surge in the electrical supply. Austin was electrocuted, and fell down on the floor facedown. Otto had just returned from the grocery store with four bags full of groceries (we can only hope they were legally obtained) when he heard the explosion rock his lab.
"Austin! Austin!" Otto desperately called, dropping the groceries. He found his son sprawled in debris facedown, wearing his duplicate set of tentacles. He called 911. God only knew how many lives had been affected by his great experiment so many years ago. Now, his son numbered among them…
Voices. The first thing that Austin was aware of was voices. Voices of surgeons discussing him as if he couldn't hear them. And voices of…he didn't know what yet.
"Okay, what have we got here?"
Are you our father?
"Fourteen year old male. Otto Octavius called him in."
He is too young to be our father.
"The great Doctor Octopus, eh? The sick bastard did this to a teenage boy?"
He is only a boy.
"Isn't this his love child? He does look just like him."
Besides, Otto Octavius is our father.
"He says he was away when this happened. So the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, they say."
He is Otto's son.
"Don't you read the tabloids? He had a one night stand with this California lawyer."
Therefore, he must be our brother.
"Nothing like getting screwed by a lawyer. Okay, business first, pleasure later. What do we have here?"
Brother, where are you?
Austin only remembered having one sister. He didn't have any brothers…or did he? It was all so confusing. Who is that?
We will serve you. We are part of you. We are you.
We will be good little brothers.
"It looks like the metal 'spine' has fused with his spinal cord. It's almost like he's got two spines instead of one. The metal arms also look like they're wired to his cerebellum."
Austin was vaguely aware of four blue eyes staring at him.
"Well, we are going to have to do something about that, are we? Can't have another Doc Ock running around. We chop up the harness first. I'll do it. I got an A in high school shop." An electric surgical saw whirred.
What is that?
He's coming to get us with that saw!
He's going to hurt us!
Brother, don't let them hurt us!
Save us, Brother!
I can't…save me
"He could be permanently paralyzed from the neck down if this goes wrong…"
He's going to hurt us…
What are you waiting for then? You know what to do…
"Don't worry, nothing's going to go wrong…what the $#!"
It went wrong. It went horribly wrong.
Wake up, Brother!
We want to show you what we did!
Aren't you proud?
Get us out of here!
I can't. Get me out of here.
Austin slowly made his way towards his father's warehouse, retrieving his pants, underwear, and coat, dressing himself along the way. He was vaguely aware of stepping over something, he thought it was dead bodies.
Aren't you proud?
I'm a murderer now…I killed people...
No you didn't, Brother. We killed them. We did it to protect you.
Wasn't self-defense a defense for murder? His mother would know.
Exhausted, Austin fell to his knees in front of the warehouse. His father spoke behind him. "It wasn't your fault."
Austin's voice was a cracked whisper. "I was the one playing around with them."
"I could help you cope with it, you know. I've been living with them far longer than you have."
"Great!" Austin exploded. "I can just imagine this around the dinner table. 'What did you do today at school, Austin?' 'Oh, I killed six people, that's three more than yesterday, isn't that great?'"
"Stop being sarcastic, Austin! Really, I can help you avoid the same mistakes I made."
"Just leave me alone."
But Austin never heard how his father could help. Red and blue lights were flashing outside the window.
Chief Taylor stepped out of the front passenger side with a megaphone. "Otto Octavius—Doctor Octopus or Doc Ock or whatever they call you—come out with your hands up! The real ones!"
He tried to raise his tentacles, but couldn't. They felt too heavy.
"Don't even try that, Doctor," Taylor shouted, brandishing a remote control device. "I've got them short-circuited. Now bring out Austin!"
Austin stepped out, quickly throwing the coat over his tentacles.
"Cuff him," Taylor ordered the NYPD officers. She handed one a roll of duct tape. "Take care of the extra arms, too."
Austin was silent. He let the officers haul his father away. "Otto Octavius, you are under arrest for kidnapping and fleeing across state lines, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…" Then he let another officer whisk him away, without looking back.
Nothing would ever be the same again.