The Amazing Spider-Girl
Chapter 3
'Holy shit.'I looked at the skyscraper in front of me as I took in the size and intricate design. Oscorp tower was the third tallest building in New York standing at 1,776 feet high, just behind One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building. The outside walls were made entirely of glass, having a metal reflective hex shaped cage surrounding it. At the very top the two sides of the building spilt and wrapped around the roof, forming two spilt points. On the top of the roof stood a 408ft long sphere antenna.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as my nerves were starting to get to me. This whole plan was insane. Sneaking into Oscorp? The leading science facility on the Eastern Seaboard? Yeah no that's totally possible, let's just pretend that I'm one of the top students in New York who just happened to be qualified enough to be able to intern for Dr. Ratha. Yes sure, no problems there what so ever. I watched as another few people rushed through the revolving doors to the building.
'You want to find out why your dad left you and all this other crazy shit? March your ass in there and get some answers!'
With that, I pushed my black Ray Ban glasses to rest on the bridge of my nose. I opted to wear them today in hopes that it might help me fit the part of a scholar. I gripped the shoulder strap on my bag and took a deep breath.
'Fuck it.'I pushed my way through the revolving doors as I entered the main lobby of the Oscorp building. I stood and took in the marvelous structure as my jaw dropped. Marble floors and the first ceiling was a solid 20 stories above allowed each floor until then to be seen from the lobby, the various elevators shafts were enclosed in glass, allowing you to see out.
"Excuse Me." I turned to the side and noticed at the receptionist desk there was a young woman staring at me. I approached her slowly, noticing the way her eyes were silently judging me. I stood up a bit straighter as I leaned onto the desk.
"Yeah?"
"Can I help you?" Her tone was too formal, but then again so was her appearance. Jet black suit, fitted with a white button up and skirt. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun and she had a headset complete with her own official Oscorp badge attached to her jacket. 'Felicia Hardy'.
"Uh yeah, I'm here to see Dr- Dr. Ratha?" I mentally slapped myself as I stuttered nervously.
"Right. You'll find yourself to the left." I drew my eyebrows together in confusion as she eyes me suspiciously. "You are here for the internship?"
"Yeah- Yes!" I shook my head profusely as she smirked at me.
"Okay…you'll find your badge, to the left." I looked to my left and that's when I realized what she meant. There must have been twenty I.D. badges sitting on the counter, each with the student's name and the Oscorp Logo. Luckily, there was no photo I.D. I grabbed the first name tag I could reach. Sorry Anna Peterson.
"Take the escalator up to the first floor and from there you should see a sign and your tour guide." I nodded to her as I clipped the badge on to the flap of my leather jacket.
"Welcome to Oscorp. Born from the mind of our founder Norman Osborn, the Oscorp Tower houses 108 floors of innovation." I hopped on the escalator as I looked at the hologram that was present from the lobby to about the 10th floor. The electronic voice was playing over top of the hologram of Norman Osborn holding the globe. His various scientific achievements and awards were being displayed as well. "Our scientific minds are pushing the boundaries of defense, biomedical, and chemical technologies. The future lies within."
I reached the top of the first floor and immediately saw a small group of students near the elevator doors. I slowly approached the group and hung out in the back, trying to be as discrete as I could.
"Welcome to Oscorp. My name is Aubrey Posen, I'm a junior at Midtown Science and head intern to Dr. Ratha." I put my hand to my face and played with my glasses, trying to avoid being seen by Aubrey, I knew that if she saw me all hell would break loose and it would ruin my plan.
"And I'm Chloe Beale, also a junior at Midtown and we'll be your tour guides today." Chloe's introduction was friendlier than Aubrey's, her smile was warm and genuine, unlike Aubrey who looked like she was babysitting.
"Where we go, you go. That's the basic rule. If you remember that all will be fine, if you forget that-" Yelling cut off Aubrey as we all turned to look over the glass railing towards the commotion in the lobby.
"Tell him that Anna Peterson is here! Dr. Ratha! I'm here! I'm-" She continued to yell as she was being escorted out of the building by two bulky security guards. I chuckled under my breath as I was her being taken out the doors.
"Well I guess we don't have to tell you what happens if you don't." Chloe finished as everyone laughed. "Aubrey will be leading the first leg of the tour here, so without further ado-" Chloe stepped aside as her and Aubrey exchanged a smile. Aubrey pressed the 'up' button and it lit up green. Of course, everything at Oscorp was green.
Two elevators arrived almost immediately and Aubrey instructed half of us to get in the first with herself and the rest to join Chloe on the second. I watched as the elevators started to fill as Aubrey and Chloe waited to be the last ones on.
'Damn it.'I realized that by me being in the back of the line that I would be the last person Chloe would see and the first person off the elevator. I tried to keep my head low as the students entered the elevators. Aubrey's filled first so she had closed the doors and was already on the way up to whatever floor we were going to. At last it was my turn to get on and I could feel Chloe's eyes following me as I stepped on the elevator. She walked in behind me as the electronic voice came on.
"What floor?"
"Thirty-fourth." Chloe answered as the elevator began to move upward. All the students gasped in excitement as they ascended through the Oscorp tower. The lobby grew smaller and smaller until we reached the twentieth floor, where our view was ended. I risked taking a look at her as I lifted my head slightly. I could see her staring straight ahead as a slight smirk was present on her face. She shook her head as she chuckled quietly to herself and looked down to her boots. I smiled at her as I knew that I was busted. The elevator stopped and Chloe stepped off first as she instructed us to follow Aubrey. We walked down a hallway briefly before stopping at a pair of clear glass doors. She swiped her access card and entered a pattern code before the doors slid open and we followed her inside. Various labs and instruments were set up in the large room, accompanied by the numerous lab technicians and scientists that were attending them.
"Come around this way." Aubrey instructed us to form a circle in the open space at the front of the room. On the ground I noticed that there were eight laser sensors stationed in the pattern of a circle on the floor in our circle. I watched as Aubrey produced a remote control from her lab coat pocket and with the push of a button, a hologram appeared in front of us.
"Welcome to Oscorp's tree of life." The hologram began speaking as the images in front of us began to change. "Our planet's tree of life is immense. At Oscorp's Cross-Species Division-"
I feigned interest as I looked around discretely, trying to find some kind of information on Dr. Ratha or anything that might help figuring out about my dad. I scooted my way to behind the rest of the pack as I looked at the various rooms all enclosed in glass and what felt like it took up the entire floor.
I felt someone lightly grab my bicep and pull me away from the group. I turned and found myself face to face with Chloe. She let go of my arm as she dropped her hands down to her side.
"Oh, hey there Chlo." I laughed out nervously as I scratched the back of my head. "What's goin' on?"
"Hi there...Anna?" Chloe's eyebrows rose in confusion as she crossed her arms over her chest. "What're you doing here?" She asked as she tilted her head to the side.
"Well ya know, I just really love science and I thought, 'Hey! There's an internship at Oscorp! Let's go and learn all about-"
Chloe laughed as she saw through my bullshit. She held up her hand to stop me as she smiled.
"You and I both know you can't stand school, let alone science, so what's really going on? Are you following me?" Chloe teased as she bit her lip and nudged me playfully.
"What?! No! I just- I…" I trailed off as I sighed in defeat. I looked to my shoes as I kicked at the floor. I put my hands in my pockets as I looked back to Chloe.
"Becs, what's going?" Chloe's tone changed from playful to concerned as she reached out to me, her hand resting on my forearm. I looked up and saw nothing but concern in her bright blue eyes. Chloe Beale, ever the most observant person. Its crazy how well she could read me, how she understood me. Chloe was never one to try and blow through my walls that I'd spent years and years building. Chloe took her time and she let me open up whenever I needed to, whenever I wanted to. She never rushed me.
"My dad." I finally said as her eyes shown even more confusion at my statement.
"Your dad? What about your-"
"Chloe!" Both of us jumped at the intrusion as we saw Aubrey waving, motioning for Chloe to join her. Chloe quickly pulled her hand away from my arm. Aubrey's hand froze mid-wave and her smile vanished as soon as she caught sight of me. She instantly narrowed her eyes, shooting me a death glare and if looks could kill I'd be six feet under at the moment. She snapped back to reality as she motioned for Chloe to join her at the front of the group.
"I have to lead this tour group, so I'm going to ask you about this later. Do not get me in trouble." Chloe warned as she swiftly made her way through the students and reached Aubrey.
"Dr. Rajit Ratha is going to be joining us now, please hold all questions until he's finished, thank you." Aubrey said as the students began to clap. He immerged from one of the glass experimental rooms marked with a white "3". He smiled kindly at the group and gave a half-hearted wave.
"Thank you, thank you. Settle down now." The applause died off as he turned towards Chloe and Aubrey. He looked just like he had in the picture I had. Evidence of old age was starting to show with his forehead wrinkles and crows feet but he still resembled the same age as in the picture. I had to find out what he knew about my dad, one way or another. Dark black hair, trimmed to perfection and his clothes were pressed, no wrinkles to be seen at all.
"Thank you Miss Posen, Miss Beale." He gave a slight bow to them as he stepped forward walked slowly in front of the front line of students. He looked each one of them up and down, lingering at one boy in particular as he adjusted his tie. The boy looked embarrassed at Dr. Ratha continued down the line before rounding and making his way back in front of Aubrey and Chloe.
"Rule number one, always present yourself in a way that will attract your ideal clients and inspire them to work with you." The group nodded, a few going so much as to scribble the quote down in their notebooks. I rolled my eyes at their eagerness.
"Welcome, my name is Doctor Ratha, the world's foremost scientist dealing in herpetology, I'll assume you all know that is the study of reptiles." He gave a pointed look to everyone as he continued. "I want to create a world without weakness. Like the Parkinson's patient, who watches in horror as their body slowly betrays her, or the man with macular degeneration, whose eye's grow dimmer each day, I wish to find the permanent solution to these medical anomalies. It is here at Oscorp that I work with many of the world's best scientists, including Dr. Norman Osborn, to develop the advancements that we experiment."
I watched him carefully as I saw the small smirk at the end of his speech. There was something off about the guy that I couldn't lay a finger on, almost as if he was up to something, he was super arrogant. His pager went off as he dug through his carious pockets to find it before reading it. His brow furrowed and I watched his grip tighten on the pager.
"I do apologize for the inconvenience, but I'm afraid I am being needed elsewhere. I'll leave you in the more than capable hands of Miss Beale and Miss Posen. Pleasure to meet you all." He nodded to the two as they straighten up and nodded back agreeing.
"Alright guys, we're gonna take you to the bioreactor room now." Aubrey began.
Dr. Ratha walked by the group as he headed towards the entrance that the group had just walked though. Spotting my opportunity, I walked backwards until I was in his path. I grabbed a folder off the desk beside and pretended to look engrossed in the information as I started to walk towards him, deliberately in his way. He was glancing down at an envelope that one of his assistants had only moments ago placed in his hands. He was only a mere two feet in front of me as I side-stepped and walked straight into his left side.
"Sorry! I didn't-" I started as he looked at me annoyed.
"You really should pay attention to where you're walking." He huffed and squatted down to pick up the papers he's been carrying. They were scattered on the ground as I dropped down to help him, while also quickly scanning the pages for any clues that could help me. He had them all almost cleaned up when I grabbed the last stack of black papers. I furrowed my eyes at these when I noticed the symbol in the upper right hand corner. ØØ. I froze as I stared at the page before snapping my head up at Dr. Ratha. He snatched the papers out of my grasp as he adjusted his coat and walked away.
"That's the same symbol that's on my dad's stuff." I whispered to myself. I watched as he exited through the automatic doors as I looked around. Aubrey and Chloe were explaining the latest machinery to the interns and all the scientists were too busy to even take notice my presence. I kept my eyes on Dr. Ratha as I followed him through the doors and down the hallway towards another division of Oscorp. I checked over my shoulder to make sure that no one had noticed me as we walked around the outer edge of the thirty-fourth floor. You could see the skyline of New York City through the glass windows as the Empire State Building was in the distance.
Dr. Ratha turned into another hallway to the right as I stood creeping around the corner watching him carefully. I watched as he approached the door that had a huge black sign with yellow lettering reading: Restricted Access: Authorized Personal ONLY. He swiped his hand across the senor touch pad beside the door knob as a projection displayed different patterns of floating shapes and lines. He touched the green hexagon as it lit up. He dragged the pattern in 'Z' shape before releasing the shape and pressing the green button at the bottom of the displayed screen.
The door locked click open as he hastily grabbed the handle and walked through the entry way as 2 technicians in white jump suits walked out, he said a brief 'hello' and continued on his way. The door shut behind him as I heard the lock reset. I looked around and noticed that no one was around in the hallway as I walked around the corner and towards the touchpad.
I stood in front of the door as I glanced at the lock projection that had popped up as it sensed me standing in front of it. 'Please enter unlock pattern'I looked at the floating shapes, ranging from a triangle to a square, every different shape was present. Cautiously, I clicked the hexagon as it lit up at my touch. I dragged the shape in the same pattern that Dr. Ratha had and clicked the green button. The lock on the door clicked as I pushed my way through it.
"Fuck." I muttered as I'd lost sight of Dr. Ratha. The long white hallway had absolutely no sign of him as I walked. I peeked in through some of the windows to the rooms and noticed that there was zero sign of any scientists in here, instead it was a series of machines building other smaller machines.
I went over to the first door that was labeled: Biocable Development Unit ØØ and peeked inside. Cautiously, I turned the door handle and entered. No big alarm went off so I took that as a good sign as I tip toed into the room.
I looked on the table to my left and noticed that there were several packages of Biocable lying open. I picked one cartridge up and examined it closely. It couldn't have been bigger than a quarter but from what I could see, the wiring, if that's what it was I couldn't tell, was packed tightly together. I tucked one into my pock and looked to my right to see another set of doors, these one's made of glass.
The doors slid open as soon as I was within 2 feet and inside, the room lights were a dimmed blue. I stepped inside as the doors slid shut and noticed what looked like a grid spinning slowly in front of me. The grid had to be about 12 feet high and 5 feet long and there were two layers circling around each other. Each square of the grid was lit by red lights in each corner. I stepped through the first layer as the second was spinning in front of me and the first spinning behind me. It was moving so slowly that I was able to see what they were for. In each square of the grid were spiders. And not just any type of spiders. These spiders were white and glowing as well as their webs that they were clinging to.
"What the fuck is this?" I looked around some more and noticed that there was nothing else in this room, it was solely focused on these spiders. "What's so special about these little guys?"
Curiously, I reached out and touched one of the edges of the glowing web that was connected to square border. Instantly the machines stopped and a hissing sound was coming from the machine. I looked up and noticed that the tiers from each section of the grid had begun to lower the grid squares into the ground, disappearing. The glowing spiders instantaneously began to fall as the webs were being squashed by the grid. "Shit! Fuck!" I jumped around trying to shake them off of me as I could feel more falling. I could feel one crawling in my hair as I leaned over and ran my hands through my hair trying to rid myself from them.
"Ow! Damn it!" I yelped feeling a sharp stinging in my hand. I leaned back up and flipped my hair over my shoulders as I looked at my hand that had begun to burn. Two little bite marks were present on the top of my hand, the spider crawling away on the floor. "Get me the hell out of this place!"
I turned and jogged back over to the glass doors and back through the first door that led to the Biocable Development Unit. The door slammed shut behind me as I leaned against it, catching my breath. A woman walked by me and gave me questioning look as I smiled back nervously. I straightened out my clothes and hair before heading back towards where I'd last seen the group.
"Where is Ear Monstrosities at?! She's not even supposed to be here! For serious Chloe what is wrong with you?!" I could hear Aubrey before I could see her. I rounded the corner and walked back into the lab as Aubrey was in the middle of lecturing Chloe who looked like someone had kicked her puppy.
"Easy Pucinator, we don't want you to repeat what happened at Regionals last year." I smirked at her as I approached the two. Chloe turned to look at me as Aubrey glared at me in anger.
"For your information, I had the stomach bug for that whole week! And who do you think you are just waltzing right in here like you own the damn place?!" I laughed again as I unclipped the intern badge from my pocket flap.
"Give me that! I can't believe you!"
"Aubrey, it was for a good cause! Beca tell her about-"
"Save it Chloe! Give me the badge Mitchell." Aubrey cut her off as she held out her hand waiting. I happily slapped it into her palm as I smiled once again, knowing that I was getting under her skin.
"It's okay." I said as I looked to Chloe who had her lip between her teeth nervously. "I didn't even find anything to help me anyway." With that I gave them each one last look before I made my way to the exit.
"Beca wait!" I heard Chloe's voice as I picked up my speed and entered the elevator. Leaving them both behind me, Chloe running her hands through her hair in frustration.
xxx
"I'm dying. I'm dying!" I mumbled to myself as I turned the key to the front door open. It was 5:00 p.m. by the time I got home off the subway and it was a miracle in itself that I was home alive. I couldn't think straight, let alone see straight. I felt so queasy and dizzy that I felt like I was turning into Aubrey. I heard Aunt May and Uncle Ben's voice as they greeted me home, but I couldn't understand what they were saying, it was all a jumbled mess.
"I'm just gonna-" I pointed weakly upstairs as I dropped my jacket on the floor. The steps were whirling in my eyes as I attempted to walk up them, I stepped out thinking the next one was there only to misjudge the distance and I fell on my face.
"Beca sweetie, are you alright?"
I couldn't even answer Aunt May as I crawled the rest of the way up and into my room as I kicked the door shut and laid still on the floor. Now instead of the steps spinning, it was my ceiling and I felt sicker and sicker with each passing minute. I shut my eyes as could feel a migraine coming on. I grabbed my blanket off the end of my bed as I pulled it down and attempted to cover myself up, I hadn't even realized I was shaking.
I heard the chime of my cell phone in my pocket as I knew it'd be Chloe asking about the mixed tape. I fumbled around for my phone before I turned it on, blinding myself by how bright it was.
"Fucking hell." I mumbled as I swiped the brightness notch down and type out a reply to Chloe, letting her know that I was sick and it'd be best to not come over.
"Hey kiddo are you alright? You look sick." Uncle Ben had opened my door as I laid on my floor.
"Yeah I feel awful, I'm just gonna go to sleep." I mumbled out as I tried to sit up, only for my stomach to feel like I'd been kicked repeatedly.
"Here let me. I use to do this all the time when you were a kid. Heck you're still the same size." If I didn't feel like I was going to pass out at any second I would have made a remark about the height joke, but I could barely keep my eyes open. Uncle Ben lifted me up and set me in my double bed as he pulled my comforter up.
"Get some rest. You know you're Aunt will be fussing over you if you don't." I nodded slowly as I curled up in a ball and help my blankets close to me.
I grabbed my phone and sent a quick text to Chloe and Jesse that I felt awful and couldn't hang out tonight. I didn't even wait for a reply before tossing it aside and feeling my body shut down.