CHAPTER THREE

QUEENS, NEW YORK.

"Surprise!" came the gleeful shouts of May Parker, Harry Osborn, and Mary Jane Watson as Peter Parker walked through the door of the modest Forest Hills home. The room was decorated with balloons and streamers. Harry blew a noisemaker as Peter stood staring at them, dumbfounded.

"Well, say something!" Aunt May said with a laugh.

"Um, what's the occasion?" Peter asked.

"Oh, really, Peter! It's your birthday!" Aunt May said, gently taking her nephew's face in her hands for a moment. "Whether you want to remember it, or not!" she added with a chuckle.

"Happy Birthday, Tiger," Mary Jane said with a sly wink. She gave Peter a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"Thanks MJ," Peter said, blushing. He adjusted his glasses awkwardly.

"How you been, pal?" Harry asked, slapping Peter on the back.

"Good! How are things going at OSCORP?" Peter asked Harry as Mary Jane and Aunt May excused themselves to the kitchen to bring out some hors d'oeuvres.

"Oh, they're great," Harry replied. "I'm head of special projects. We are about to make a breakthrough on fusion. We're actually funding one of your idols, Pete. Otto Octavius."

"I'm writing a paper on him!" Peter replied in awe.

"You want to meet him?"

"You'd introduce me?"

"You bet," Harry said with a confident smile. "Octavius is going to put OSCORP on the map in a way my father never even dreamed of."

"Speaking of your father…" Peter said, gently. "Has there been any word from him?"

Harry's expression fell. "No. And I don't think there ever will be." Harry was very solemn now. "Pete, I think my father is dead."

"Dead?" Peter scoffed. "Harry, don't talk like that."

Harry shook his head. "He was involved with something that he shouldn't have been. The people he was associating with… the things that he was raving about… He kept talking about someone called 'the traveler.' It was all very disturbing."

"What people? What traveler? Harry, what are you talking about?"

"Pete…" Harry said quietly. "Have you ever heard of something called Veritas?"

Before Peter could respond, the front door opened again.

"Did I miss the surprise?" Peter's Uncle, Ben Parker, walked in carrying a couple of large pizzas.

"Uncle Ben!" Peter greeted his uncle with a big grin. "Here, let me help you with those," he said, taking the pizza boxes from his uncle so he could remove his jacket.

"Ah, I knew I should've had them delivered!" Ben muttered. "Joe's Pizza just takes so darn long sometimes. Twenty-nine minutes, my foot!"

Peter laughed. He set the pizzas down on the table and gave his uncle a hug. "It's okay, Uncle Ben! Come on. It's pizza time!"

. . . . . .

OSCORP RESEARCH FACILITY, A FEW DAYS LATER.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my wife Rosie and I would like to welcome you this afternoon," Otto Octavius said to the crowd gathered to watch the demonstration of his scientific breakthrough – a crowd which included Peter Parker, Harry Osborn, several OSCORP shareholders, reporters, and some fellow renowned scientists. "But first, before we start, has anybody lost a large roll of twenty dollar bills in a rubber band? Because we found the rubber band."

Modest laughter followed Octavius's attempt at humor.

"It's a terrible joke," Otto acknowledged, raising his hands dismissively. "But thank you for coming. Today, you will witness the birth of a new fusion-based energy source. Safe, renewable energy and cheap electricity for everyone. And now let me introduce my assistants."

Otto dramatically pulled a sheet off of an apparatus in the center of the room, revealing a metal harness with four long retractable tentacles attached to it.

"These four actuators were developed and programmed for the sole purpose of creating successful fusion," Otto explained, removing his shirt and approaching the apparatus. "They are impervious to heat and magnetism." Otto tapped in a command on a nearby podium console. The harness closed around his waist, and a series of metallic vertebrae slowly aligned with his own spine. There was a collective wince from the crowd as dozens of tiny pins slipped into Otto's back, locking the mechanism to his body.

With a modicum of concentration, Otto Octavius was able to raise the four tentacles with the power of his own mind.

"These 'smart arms' are controlled by my brain through a neural link," Otto explained. "Nanowires feed directly into my cerebellum, allowing me to use these arms to control fusion reaction in an environment no human hand could enter."

"Doctor, if the artificial intelligence in the arms is advanced as you suggest, couldn't that make you vulnerable to them?" asked a reporter in the crowd.

"How right you are," Doctor Octavius said with a knowing grin. "Which is why I developed this inhibitor chip to protect my higher brain function." He pointed to a translucent chip at the base of his skull. "It means I maintain control of these arms, instead of them controlling me." He turned toward a complex array of computer towers and high-tech machinery. "And now, on to the main event! Give me the blue light, Rosie!"

Some assistants wheeled carts full of monitoring equipment out of the way, revealing a dais with four large pylons extending above it in a kind of archway. Otto confidently strode over to the dais. A console opened up and a cylindar raised up out of it. One of the tentacles delicately retrieved a small spherical object from within it.

"Precious tritium is the fuel that makes this project go," Otto explained. "There's only 25 pounds of it on the whole planet. I'd like to thank Harry Osborn and OSCORP Industries for providing it."

"Happy to pay the bills, Otto," Harry said from his place at the front of the onlooking crowd.

Dr. Octavius released the sphere of tritium above the platform. It seemed to hang in the air, suspended as if by magic. After a moment it began to spin around and around. Otto looked at his wife, Rosie. They smiled at each other. This was his big moment. Otto donned a pair of safety goggles.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "Fasten your seatbelts."

He typed in a command on a keyboard. With a hum, a beam of light shot out of each of the pylons, each one intersecting with the tritium from a different angle. The tritium started to glow, faintly at first and then brighter and brighter. It began to expand, growing larger in size as well as intensity.

"Doctor," said one of Otto's assistants. "We have a successful fusion reaction!"

The crowd cheered and applauded at this incredible scientific breakthrough. Dr. Octavius turned and positively beamed with pride at his wife, who smiled adoringly at him as she too began to applaud.

A couple of spikes in energy snapped and sizzled around the outer rim of the glowing fusion reaction. Octavius used the tentacles to carefully suppress the spikes and guide them back into the bright orange sphere.

"The power of the sun…" Otto mused. "…in the palm of my hand."

Peter Parker looked on in utter amazement. He had always found science fascinating. To be here, now, witnessing one of his idols achieve such a revolutionary accomplishment live and in person was the thrill of a lifetime. Then something caught his eye. A paperclip, on the floor. It inched its way closer to the tritium reaction. A few slight, skittish scoots at first. Then it lifted up and flew directly at the fusion reaction as if drawn by a magnet.

Suddenly, the light fixtures on the ceiling began to bend toward the reaction as well. The crowd gasped as jewelry, pens, pencils, clipboards, basically anything that was not nailed down flew across the room toward the experiment.

"Keep calm!" Otto called out. "It's only a spike! It'll soon stabilize!" He raised his arm reassuringly, only to have his wristwatch ripped off as well.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please clear the room!" a technician yelled, trying to usher the crowd toward the exit in an orderly fashion.

The reaction grew more severe. The tall computer carts were drawn toward the epicenter of the reaction as well. The metal plating in the very walls of the room began to rend and rip.

"We have a containment breach!" one of the assistants yelled.

Octavius looked up in surprise as a huge tendril of energy blasted its way out of the electromagnetic field around the dais. It tore its way into the ceiling, sending chunks of rubble showering down from overhead.

"Otto, please!" Rosie pleaded, rushing toward her husband. A huge hunk of debris from the ceiling came crashing down near her, causing her to duck into a nearby alcove.

"Shut it off, Otto! Shut it off!" Harry Osborn bellowed.

"It will stabilize! It's under control!"

Another spike broke the containment field. This time the enormous plate glass windows shattered as their metal moorings were uprooted. Shards of deadly jagged glass flew across the room like shrapnel from a grenade. One particularly sharp piece flew directly at Rosie. Her eyes went wide. She screamed.

There was a flutter of black as a cape enveloped Rosie and a dark figure from the shadows tackled her to the floor. The jagged shard of glass just missed her, shattering as it hit the wall.

Rosie looked up in astonishment at the figure who had just saved her life. The man wore a cowl with two pointed horns protruding from the top.

"Stay down," Batman growled.

"Rosie!" Otto called out. He ripped off his safety goggles, staring in horror at the spot where his wife had nearly been impaled.

Another figure flew in through the shattered windows; a man in red and gold armor.

"Shut it down, Otto!" Iron Man commanded. He deftly countered the pull of the magnetic field against his metallic armor via the rocket thrusters in his hands and boots.

A huge tendril of energy arced out of the tritium reaction, heading straight for Dr. Octavius. Iron Man fired off a repulsor blast that knocked Otto out of the way; the arc of energy just missed him. Dr. Octavius collapsed to the ground.

"This… this is my legacy!" Octavius pleaded, looking up pathetically from the floor. "You can't stop it!"

"Trust me, Doctor," Iron Man said. "This isn't the legacy that you want."

Batman reached into his utility belt and procured four shuriken-like batarangs. With one deft motion he hurled them at the wall where several enormous cables were plugged into the building's power source. The razor-sharp projectiles embedded themselves in the wall around the cables, sending sparks showering everywhere. Iron Man zipped over to the wall, grabbed the loosened cables with both hands, and with a tremendous heave he tore them straight out of the wall. The tritium reaction shuddered and shook, then seemed to collapse in on itself. For a brief moment there was silence.

"Crap," Iron Man muttered, knowing what was coming. "JARVIS, help me contain this!" He flew to the spot where the fusion reaction had been radiating a moment ago, then held out his hands and braced himself. A second later there was an explosion as the latent energy from the reaction was released all at once. Iron Man's outstretched hands generated a forcefield, containing most of the brunt of the explosion. "Arrggh!" Iron Man screamed, as even with the forcefield in place he was blown back several feet by the strength of the blast. His armor was scratched and singed.

After a few long tense moments, the smoke and dust settled.

Otto Octavius was on the floor, burying his face in his hands in a mixture of shock, embarrassment and despair. Iron Man typed a command into a podium console that was somehow still standing after all of the chaos. The vertebrae braces holding the harness in place detached themselves from Dr. Octavius. With a clank, clank, clank, clank the mechanical tentacles fell to the floor and lay listlessly at his side. Rosie rushed to her husband, dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him. They both wept.

Batman and Iron Man slowly approached a shell-shocked Peter Parker.

"Are you Peter Parker?" Iron Man asked.

"H-How do you know my name?" he asked, stunned.

"We need to talk," Batman snarled.