To Song With No Soul: Thank you for your reviews. As for my villains...I have fond memories of multiple reviewers practically screaming for the blood of the villainess of the Austin series. As for Otto's mutant powers...I must give credit where it's due and give a shout-out to my "homies" at the Yahoo! Doctor Octopus webgroup, for bringing up the possibility...fascinating place. As for the seemingly omnipresent secret government agency...you will wish to stick around to see the end.
Hello Loyal Minions, have I got an assignment for you! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read the past few chapters of this story, Nature Versus Nurture 3, and then to review them so I will have some idea of what you think about them. The clock starts ticking...now.
Chapter 12: All For One
John Hancock: "We must all hang together."
Benjamin Franklin: "Yes, for if we don't hang together, we shall assuredly hang separately."
Dr. Payton Gatsby awoke to urgent pounding on his door. He faintly recognized his visitor.
"You must be Miss Jordan Nicholas. Daisy's friend from school."
"Where is she, Payton? Where's Daisy?"
"My daughter is asleep, Jordan, It's three in the morning."
"Tell her it's an emergency! Tell her that—"
Daisy had now shown up at the door. "Tell her that Octavia's been kidnapped, again," she sarcastically completed.
"What?" Payton was puzzled. "Octavia Jones? That tall brown-haired girl you two hang with? The one who wears a trench coat all the time?"
Jordan nodded confirmation.
"Haven't you called the police?"
"Of course not, Dad," Daisy said. "Jordan never calls the police because Octavia's been kidnapped five times in the past two years and she and her conspiracy nut father think—"
Jordan quickly slapped Daisy upside the face. "Shut up, Daisy! We've had our differences, but damn, this is bigger than you and me right now! You know what Octavia is and why she's in danger! She may be dead or tortured by them right now! What did the three of us swear so long ago?"
Daisy recalled an ancient elementary school memory. They were just cute little girls then. Jordan wasn't wearing a spiked collar and black leather then. Daisy didn't have a pierced eyebrow, tongue and nose then. Octavia didn't have robot tentacles sprouting out her back then. What the hell had happened over those years?
"All for one and one for all," Daisy whispered.
Jordan took charge at once. All those years in their little group of three, Jordan was the bold, brassy, charismatic leader; Octavia was the idea girl, the planner, the strategist and the brains of the troop; Daisy the quiet, reliable follower and peacemaker.
Then they were three. Now they might be only two.
Jordan was calling Directory Assistance. Octavia said Mack had mentioned his adopted mother was a lawyer, now a named partner in her law firm. She had just found out that one local law firm was headed by Murdock, Nelson, and Jackson.
And if this MaryAnn Jackson wasn't Mack's adopted mom, she'd eat Octavia's stupid Indiana Jones fedora. Without salt.
Jordan started to get a knot in her stomach. She sometimes got intuitions, gut instincts, but only in times of extreme stress. But as infrequently as they came, it was better if they were obeyed. Now they told her to go back home, before it was too late.
The Nicholas residence, when Jordan finally returned, was silent. Eerily silent. The kind of silent when you just know something's wrong.
There was nothing and no one to be seen, not Men in Black, or her beloved father.
"What the hell—?" she whispered.
And then she saw him.
Anthony James Nicholas lay sprawled on his stomach. Right now, right here, Jordan didn't notice or care that four of the fingernails on his right hand were pulled out, or that there were two large punctures in his lower back.
All she knew that her beloved, courageous father was undoubtedly dead, and her reaction is better imagined than described, because it escapes even the words of this author.
How did it happen? The SDSI-CIA agent—was her name Cypher?—had arrested him, detained him—and then what did she do? Interrogate him right there in the den, pulling fingernails and demanding where "the clone" was?
But Jordan knew her father never spilled. He'd held out until Cypher finally got tired of dealing with him and killed him. Before his arrest and interrogation, he fought. Fought for the Constitutional rights that he'd fought for in the Iraqi desert. This time, though, the enemies of Freedom were domestic, not foreign. And that had made him fight harder and fiercer than ever.
He'd known what Octavia was and what she was part of; he'd known what was happening and what was at stake. He'd opened up a big can of worms, uncovered a nationwide conspiracy, just like Danny Casolaro (a name quite unfamiliar to her, but one which Daddy mentioned and praised constantly), and just like Danny Casolaro had died trying to expose the tangled cabal he called "the Octopus," Anthony Nicholas had died trying to expose the equally tangled plot they called "Project Octopus."
Melissa Breedlove, neé Nicholas, and her custodial son Morgan Freeman Nicholas, pulled up to her ex-husband's house, hauling ass as best she could on her VW Beetle. The first thing she heard was her non-custodial daughter's high, keening shriek.
"It's nice and all that you're hiding me here, but what do I do, Mr. Parker? I can't just sit around and hide all the time, you know. My friends, my family—well, the closest thing I've got to family now, at any rate—they're all in danger. I know it." She started for the door.
"Look, you're not doing your friends any favors by putting yourself in danger. Stay put at least until you drop off their radar—" With lightning speed, he grabbed at her coat.
"I don't think you quite understand, Mr. Parker," Octavia coldly replied. "I'll never drop off their radar, not until I'm dead, and I have absolutely no plans to die in the near future." She casually pushed him out of her way, Peter catching his breath heavily at the blow. Doc Ock doesn't have super-strength, does he?
She glanced once more at Peter. "Even if it means blowing the damn Manhattan SDSI headquarters sky-high."
Peter smiled. Got to admit, she had chutzpah. "At least let me take you there." He had his own vendetta.
"Nicholas has been eliminated," Agent Cypher reported. "I paid a visit to him myself. He won't be a problem anymore."
Dr. Melitta felt an odd shudder from the human conscience she had so eagerly buried long ago under her coldly rational, scientific mind. Horror crept into her voice. "Did you use lethal force?"
Cypher's voice was oddly deep. "He refused to cooperate." Cypher looked different, too; she looked somehow stronger. Her muscles under the armor were more pronounced; she seemed to look a bit bigger. She was also getting more aggressive, more careless with orders. She couldn't succeed in her last assignment following orders; what could she screw up breaking them?
Nancy shuddered again, starting to regret playing around with alien life and celestial debris. Her expertise in biology and genetics was limited to life on Earth, thank you very much!