Jessica opened her eyes, rubbing them clear until she could see in the dimly lit room. She sat up, feeling the ground spring under her, and she realized she'd been put on a mattress which had been shoved against a wall and covered with the fleece blanket. She noticed her door was closed and quickly changed her clothes, smoothing the wrinkles out of her shirt as best she could. She checked her ankles, still free from the shackles and stood up, walking over to the door. She tried to turn the handle, and finding it locked, knocked on the wood. She hoped Octavius was in a better mood compared to however long ago he'd put her under. At the thought, she turned around and ran her fingers along the metal on her back, realizing it was remarkably thin, and now quite unobtrusive. While she marveled at the change, the door unlocked and opened. Otto stared from the doorway as she deftly traced the top quarter of the spinal tap, and then realized the door was open and turned to face him. Her face was set as neutral as possible, waiting to see what mood he was in.
She is afraid of me…us.
Fear can mean a healthy respect. Otto turned on his heel and led her to a table with a bowl of cereal, and a jug of milk. She sat down, signing her thanks and ate quickly while he worked on something. She finished and looked over at him, his complete concentration on the page before him. She washed out her dish and put away the milk that she recognized as hers. She set the clean dish and spoon on the counter and looked over Octavius's shoulder. He curled over it, blocking his work from her view. She shrugged to herself and found her own pad of paper. She dropped it on the table and sat down, poising the pen over the page before writing.
"Still no ransom?" He glanced at the pad that had been set on top of his work and shook his head 'no.' "What are you working on?"
"Nothing of your concern."
"Sure, whatever you say, doc." She signed and then leaned back in her chair. He hunched back over the notepad briefly before sliding it to her.
"How does it feel?"
"Not as annoying." She gave it back, looking around the room idly.
"Since you have nothing better to do, go into the other room. There's a computer in there that needs some attention. You should have everything there that you need." Jess looked at him, confused, but stood up and wandered into the lab, a tower, monitor and keyboard sitting in the middle of the floor and some tools on a nearby counter.
If it keeps me alive… She sat down and began to assess the problem.
Seven minutes. An actuator curled back to Otto from the doorway it had been watching Jessica from.
Already? Then it seems she may have earned her job at Oscorp. He folded up the blueprint and walked into the room, coming up behind her. She was closing the side of the tower and screwing the side back on. She felt his footsteps and looked up at him from the floor, smiling nervously.
"Done." She signed and he nodded, picking up the machine with his actuators and putting it back into its place.
"Thank you." She saw him say. He was about to leave when she tapped his arm and he did an about face.
"Thank you." She signed to him, and though the device on her back wasn't turned on, she hoped she voiced it clearly. He pinched his brows together and scowled, walking off.
It was worth a try. She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck absentmindedly as she walked around the corner of his lab, being careful to not disturb anything. Even though she wasn't a physicist, she could at least think she appreciated the intelligence it took to understand the masses of books laying around, filled with notes and the scattered papers of equations. She avoided the rest of the lab, especially the corner that the metal table occupied, and eventually made her way back to her room. She flopped down on her mattress and stared at the ceiling, letting herself doze.
Jess awoke to Octavius tapping her shoulder, a camera and tripod set up with a stool this time. He was still limping slightly as she sat down and he handed her the notepad.
"Reintroduce yourself. Tell them you are okay, and that I have been using you in an experiment, but don't reveal what has been done to you. If the ransom is not paid by the city or Oscorp, then the testing will continue until someone yields." Jess's heart skipped a beat as she pulled the pen from the spiral.
"You mean, until they pay or I die? You're going to kill me?" He read it and shook his head in the negative.
"The experiments will continue until they pay or I get the results I want."
"What are the results you want?" She saw she had pushed his patience far enough as he dropped the notebook on the floor, implying she didn't need a reply. She looked back to the camera as he moved over and turned it on. He stood near her as she felt his voice boom and then it stopped as he faced her. She took her cue.
"My name is Jessica Roarn." Her hands started to shake, so she took a breath before continuing. "Because you did not pay Doctor Octopus, he has begun to use me as a test subject. He has informed me that the experiments will continue until the ransom is paid. He doesn't care if the city or Oscorp pays, as long as he gets his money." Her signing had been a bit sloppy, but it was more than clear enough to be translated. His voice made the room vibrate when she finally found out why he'd set up a stool. He spun her in place by her shoulders and pushed down the back of her shirt and held her hair back as he showed the spinal tap to the camera. Jess grabbed his arm, trying to release her neck from his vice grip, when he let go, walking over and turning off the camera. He looked satisfied as Jess narrowed her eyes at him. He ignored the look, taking his camera and the stool with him to his lab. Jessica grabbed the notepad and followed Octavius to his lab.
"You could have warned me you were going to do that." The pad landed in his lap as the video transferred to his computer. He handed the pad back to her and pulled up an empty document.
"You didn't need to know. Besides, it will help with the effect of getting people to react, and send the money so that I can release you."
"You didn't need to grab me so hard. And what happened to me being your pet guinea pig? Change of heart?" She wrote on the pad. She watched him quickly crop off the parts of the video where he turned the camera on and off and then sent the raw footage to the e-mails of a number of news stations and the police.
"We'll be on the six o'clock news. If you want, I'll let you watch it with me. I'm curious as to how the city will react to this 'new' development." She sighed through her nose and scowled. "Frankly, I'm surprised that they haven't come after me yet, or sent the money. They usually respond rather quickly to kidnappings." The cursor blinked in place for a few seconds. "Do you have any family in New York?" Jess frowned, taking her hands one palm up, the other down, and then flipping them over, and then making a cross on her shoulder. Otto mimicked her look, except with a touch of confusion. "That explains the lack of response then. Once the family gets word, the city usually responds quickly. Where are your parents?" She repeated the actions, and then rooled her eyes, taking over the keyboard.
"Dead and in the hospital." His eyes lit up, realization dawning.
"Oh."
"You should learn ASL. This would make things easier." She signed at him and then walked off to her room. She moved her mattress to a corner, making the bare room as comfortable as she could and then relaxed on the bed, taking in everything that had happened so far.
I still can't believe they didn't pay my ransom. Why? She tried to push possibilities out of her mind until a few hours later, her door opened again and Octavius walked in. She sat up and knew; the news was on. She was half tempted to stay, but she wanted to see what would happen. She stood up and followed him to a room she hadn't been in before, one that was nicely furnished, almost like he'd taken a living room and dumped it in the middle of an abandoned building. She sat down on the couch as he stood behind it, turning on the TV, and then setting up the captions. He turned to channel 2 and waited through the commercials.
"Tonight on Channel Two News, Doctor Octopus continues to hold a disabled woman hostage, targeting both Oscorp and the city to pay a ransom of fifty million dollars for her safe return." Jessica sat dumbfounded for a minute and then signed wildly at the TV.
"I am NOT disabled! I'm deaf." The screen popped to the image of the chief of police, flanked by the mayor and Harry Osborn at a press meeting.
"Right now, we are still deliberating as to what should be done about the hostage situation."
"Chief! What is your opinion of Doctor Octopus taking this specific hostage?"
"We don't know if he purposely targeted this woman or not, but we do understand from the footage that has been reviewed by our investigators, that he has in fact done bodily harm to her."
"Chief!" The man pointed to a reporter. "Is it true that the device on her back is for mind control?"
"We have not yet figured out what the device on the back of her neck is for. We don't believe it is meant as a sort of mind control." The hands rose up again but he stilled them with a motion of his hand. "We do not intend to let any more harm come to Miss Roarn. My entire department is on top of this situation, and Mr. Osborn and the Mayor back us 100 percent. We will bring her safely home to her family." The three men walked off stage as the image zoomed out and then was replaced by the reporter at the desk in the studio. Jessica stood up and walked off to the kitchen, sitting down at the table and dropped her head onto the surface.
Fifty million dollars. Who would pay that for a me? Otto sat down lazily in the chair across the table from her, pushing the notepad over to her side. She took the pen and scribbled half heartedly.
"I am NOT disabled. And they already missed the first deadline. When is the second time set?"
"Tomorrow night."
"And if they miss that one?" Octavius looked down at the paper, scratching his arm as he looked at the page.
What DO we do if they don't make the second deadline? I'm not killing her. And I just can't let her go.
Why can't we kill her? She's our hostage, and we must prove a point.
As much of a point that proves, I don't think killing her would win me brownie points with New York. I'll just…need to think of something else.
Attack Oscorp using her laptop. That will get attention.
That would certainly work. He realized Jess was growing nervous at his lack of response.
"I'll be taking a different approach." She shook her head and started signing, but he interrupted her. "I'm not going to kill you. It's bad policy." She didn't seem to find much humor in his remark, but she smiled faintly, nodding. "For now, since I won't have you sitting around idle the whole evening, I have a list of things I need you to do in my lab." She nodded again, mimicking the motion with her fist. He brought her to his lab and handed her a printed sheet with a list of tasks, and the locations of the computers. Once he made sure she knew what to do, he walked off to another part of the lab, leaving her to the company of the computers around her.