Chapter 12: Nuclear Fusion

"A devil, a born devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick." –Shakespeare, The Tempest

This is Octavia Jones, right now:

For years, your nights have been haunted by strange nightmares: you dream of sun and water, of trains and strange-looking men in red and blue tights. Sometimes, you have even dreamed that you are a man.

Now, you know what it all means.

And slowly, as you face the spandex-clad hero from your dreams, the puzzle pieces of your life fly together and fuse like hydrogen atoms, producing—

Fusion.

The doctor went flying under the force of Spider-Man's punch, shouting "Strike, Octavia, strike!" before being concussed on the wall.

Octavia. Now that's an unusual name—

And that was about as far as Spidey's train of thought went, because the girl had flung off a brown leather trench coat to reveal four silvery metal tentacles.

Oh, this is bad, he thought. This is bad.

The hero's spidey-sense barely had time to warn him before he got clipped in the jaw. Just frickin great. She's got a new and improved version.

Finally, Octavia knew what Carlyle meant when he said, "Use your faults." Her faults were, namely: her explosive temper, her aggressiveness, and her arrogance.

Spidey found to his dismay that she was blindingly fast and impossibly strong; she was a super-soldier, after all. She danced in the fight like a mote of dust in a sunbeam, leaving Spidey to punch at empty air.

I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, a famous boxer once said. Your fists can't hit what your eyes don't see!

It was fairly business as usual at Shylock High School, but Jordan Nicholas and Daisy Gatsby were too worried about their friend to concentrate in class. They were in gym now, and Jordan, who hated volleyball anyway, shivered with dread both at getting picked last for the game and the possibility that…

"Oh, look, it's two of the Three Stooges," Heather Cannes, the snarky new Queen Bee, snickered.

"Better than the Stepford Cheerleaders, I can tell ya that," Jordan retorted.

"Your wisecracks are as lame as your clothes, Jordan. The velvet stretch pants went out in the seventies. When are you going to grow up?"

"You mean grow up like you and your pets? You mean wear skintight clothes, shake your t and a around, act like you're God's gift to guys, show off to anyone and no one, and pick on girls who are different than you?"

"Smart. Real smart, Nicholas. You're too smart for your own good. Around here, you have to put out to get in and kiss ass to stay in."

"Yes, I'm sure you put out, Cannes. I'm sure the varsity football team thinks you're a very generous individual."

"Quit with your cracks, Jordan. I'm giving you this advice for your own good. Do you know which one of us is going to get the college recommendation letters? You know, the ones that say, "This young lady is a fine student involved in five extracurricular activities?"

"Yeah, I do. And I also know who's going to desperately need them when the SAT scores come in."

"Good Lord, Jordan. For three girls who are supposed to be the smartest in the school, you, Daisy, and Octavia don't know diddly squat. Is there one guy in the entire school who will give you the slightest bit of attention?"

"Do you and your cronies ever date any guys who have an IQ bigger than his football jersey number?"

"Jordan, I'm not here to discuss high school social mores with you. I've heard you spouting off how CIA agents kidnapped your pal Octavia Jones."

"My dad thinks that too."

"Your dad thinks the FBI killed Marilyn Monroe because she was pregnant with John Kennedy's baby and the US Army put a microchip in his ass before he went to fight in Gulf War I."

"My dad's open minded."

"Yes, he's so open-minded you can look in his eyes and see right to the back of his skull. I hate to break the truth about your pal Squid Vicious this way."

Heather pulled a copy of The Daily Bugle from her pocket. The headline read: "Mad Scientist's Rampage, Spider-Man Possibly Involved." Heather began to read. "'The mad scientist known worldwide as 'Doctor Octopus' is allegedly behind the robberies of scientific equipment at the International Science and Engineering Convention and the prominent corporation Oscorp Industries. It is estimated that several million dollars worth of equipment was stolen, including the rare and unstable hydrogen isotope tritium,' blah, blah, blah—oh, here's the good part! 'Octavius is believed to be accompanied by his hostage-turned-accomplice, believed to be a teenage girl with brown hair and brown eyes. They are both considered to be well-armed and dangerous', blah, blah, blah—do you guys know what 'Stockholm Syndrome' is 'cause I sure as hell don't—"

Daisy looked at the photograph. "Good God! It can't be! Octavia is the accomplice?—"

Heather was obviously enjoying herself. "Like father, like daughter, after all. Now, let's get to the volleyball game. Maybe you guys will be picked—oh, second to last, if you're lucky." She threw one last look over her shoulder. "You poor, pitiful turds."

"You're where they come from, Heather!" Jordan retorted.

Finally, Spidey managed to get a kick to the chest in. Octavia's two lower tentacles sank pincers in the ground, preventing her from falling. Unfortunately, all Spidey was doing here was pissing her off. The girl's tentacles were whipping around furiously and unpredictably; as soon as Spidey dodged one, another two arms whacked him again. He quickly realized the girl was playing his spidey-sense like a cheap fiddle.

It was though something large, monstrous, and slimy had hatched in Octavia's stomach, clawing at her insides. Hot blood was flowing into her mind, immersing it with a savage desire to snap Spidey's head right off his shoulders. She hated this man, she wanted to kill him, and she didn't know why; she didn't even know him, all he did was beat the shit out of a father who might have been the Jango Fett to her clonetrooper, but really wasn't a father at all.

"I'll do…what I must…" Spidey said, more to himself, his wife, and his children than Octavia. He struggled to get up, battered and bruised.

"You will try, you freak!" Octavia snarled. In a reaction Spidey's Aunt May could probably describe as quicker than spit, she sprang at him, pincers seizing him by wrists and ankles and pinning him to the wall.

Spidey coughed. "I'm a freak? I guess it takes one to know one! You've got your certified freak license already!"

"What do you do when you're not a superhero? Perform at the comedy club? Ah, yes—coming for one night only, Spider-Man, the last comic swinging." Octavia's face twisted in cold fury; the pincers snapped shut, and Spidey cried out in pain as the bones in his wrists shattered. She suddenly released him, pinning him down to the floor with one tentacle as a long blade popped out of another arm and—!

Oh, God. I need a miracle. Don't let me go now…

Then he heard the door being kicked in. Agent Cypher stood at the doorway, pointing a rifle straight at Octavia. "Let go of him, girl."

With a yellow-trimmed tentacle, Otto (who had recovered from his fall) grabbed the rifle out of Cypher's hand, bent it with a pincer into something resembling a pretzel, and threw it aside. "Take your hero home, woman," he said contemptuously. "He won't be causing us much trouble in the near future."

"Next time, Spider, we'll go in together." Cypher frowned. "I'm gonna have to fill out papers in quintuplicate to get a new rifle—"

"There may not be a next time! I would have been killed if you hadn't shown up right then!"

"You need to go to the hospital." Cypher admonished. "Your ribs are broken in several places and you're bleeding all over!"

"I can't! If I go as Spider-Man, they'll want to know what we've been doing in this lab, and if I go as Peter Parker, I'm going to have a hell of a time explaining why this is coming out of my wrist!" Spidey pulled at a long, red gob of what looked like bloody spider-web.

"That's disgusting! For Chrissakes don't get it on my seats! I thought you'd invented a mechanical device to squirt cartridges of artificial polymer. I never expected—"

"Good Lord, I'm Spider-Man, not Thomas Edison!" He looked at his mangled wrists and broken ankles. "I'm out of commission. Can't even climb walls properly."

"Man, the good doctor really busted you up."

"It wasn't him, it was the girl! He must have put tentacles on her! She's stronger, faster, smarter, and she looks just like him!"

Cypher feigned surprise.

"I mean it," Spidey continued. "Sometimes I wish super-villains didn't have kids."

"Don't think we haven't tried," groaned Cypher. "SHIELD managed to capture five notorious super-criminals—your octopedal pal back there being one of them—and Chief Agent Nick Fury planned to enforce existing eugenics laws to sterilize them. He said these dangerous men should not be permitted to perpetuate their powers and madness into the next generation."

"Eugenics!" Spidey exclaimed in horror. Sure he wished he didn't have to deal with another Harry Osborn, but to actually--! "Didn't Hitler come up with that?"

"Look, Spider-Man. Neurologists and geneticists no longer believe that the mind is a blank slate, a tabula rasa, etched on by upbringing and experience. Everything from temperament, emotion, aggression, tendencies to violence and madness, even including moral choices are hardwired into the brain. You're a photographer, right? Let me use this analogy. Your brain is born an exposed negative waiting to be dipped in the developing fluid. You can develop the negative well or you can do it poorly, but either way you aren't going to get much that isn't already imprinted in the film. Your genes are destiny—if your dad's a super-villain, you're going to grow up to be one too, since superpowers are also inherited. It's just written there, in your genes. Agent Fury just wanted to save the future superheroes the trouble."

"And what happened?" asked Spidey.

Cypher laughed hollowly. "The five got wind of the plan, escaped, and nearly trashed the White House until the Avengers came in! So much for that!"