"They're on the move again."
"I don't think so, Norman. The pattern doesn't match up."
"Are you really trying to put a pattern on a psychopath?"
"People are obsessed with them for a reason, Norman. They're human Chameleons, they don't need to practice putting on a mask, unlike you, Norman. They are the mask, and they can peel it off whenever they want."
"Then why is there a report about an assault done by the Flame Cult on a group of young teenage girls?"
"And who were they?"
"Pardon?"
"Who were the girls that were attacked? After all, we only know one that stands out."
Norman pulled his phone and scrolled.
"Raf - Lo - Cin…" His voice trailed off.
"Cindy Moon…There never was an attack, was there?"
Norman's eyes scanned the article, "...She's the Spiderwoman."
"What gave that away? The hair?"
Norman sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, "Too many things…"
"I have a suspicion, Norman, that it was that Widow woman that attacked her."
"You have proof?"
"Only conjecture on what you have given me, Norman. Nari, Moon. Let's start there, shall we?"
"Must we do this?"
"Humor me, Norman. A way to get your great mind off of things."
Norman sighed, rubbed his face, then paused his hand at his mouth.
He was silent for a moment, "Nari Moon. And… her husband Albert. There was brilliance in both of them. My top scientists, actually. But where Albert shined, Nari soldiered on with determination. That daughter of their's. Thinking about it now, I remember Nari getting frustrated that they sometimes had to take her into work."
A distant look came to his eyes, far away yet somehow close, "They were a good family, and even though Nari complained about her daughter almost all time you could almost see that she wouldn't have it otherwise. Then…"
He paused, then, speaking again his voice became low and flat, "Then, one day, their son died, their eldest child. I got a call, said they desperately needed help. I obliged, I was still in the building at the time. They came in. They brought their children. Albert Jr. he… Cindy was in shock, she had all this white stuff on her. They were webs, Otto."
"Before Spiderman."
"No." Norman looked at Otto straight in the eye, "They were organic. She didn't know how to control it. Even when I had them brought in, Cindy kept shooting webs all over the place."
"The boy?"
Norman's silence was loud as he regained that far-away look in his eyes, but there was something dark in them, festering, boiling up to the surface again.
He looked away, staring long into the opposite end for a long moment before turning back, "At the time, we were building a containment cell by commission from law enforcement, unbreakable by normal human means. The same ones now being used in the Raft. Such a thing as this, had to be kept under wraps. We… we put little Cindy in there as a way to prevent her from being a danger to anyone."
"Then…" He continued, "Then she threw up. A few of her teeth were in that bile as well."
"...Mutation."
"Exactly. It was acidic and little Cindy was complaining how her throat and stomach were hurting. Then soon, her bones started cracking. We had her examined. The mutation was happening so quickly. I had only seen Nari frustrated and focused, but I understood that look she had when she saw the results."
Norman paused yet again, "She was still awake when we all woke up the next morning. But something in her had changed. Then we saw the needle in the lab that Nari made in the cell room, that's when we put it together. We tried to talk to her about the dangers of a blood transfusion, but she had this look in her eye. Nothing else mattered but saving her daughter."
"Then those photos?"
"The result of Nari's 'exposure.' Overtime, Albert couldn't bear to look at her and kept out, sharing work with her through data transfer outside the lab. It eventually got to a point that no one could enter the lab - Nari didn't want anyone else bothering her. Nothing could get to her, not even Albert himself. Overtime, we kept hearing more and more noises coming from the cell room - it was a big room where we could develop and make adjustments to the cell as we wanted. We tried to get in but then…"
Noman went pale, his hands sweat broke out on his skin and wiped it away, "We saw Nari… And what she had become at that point. We also managed to see Cindy, huddled in the corner of the cell. We made a plan. But, Albert - I saw the look in his eye, a man so close to turning into paper, crumbling in itself. It was late at night. The alarm in the cell room went off. Armed personnel went to the scene and were injured as collateral damage."
"From what?"
"Barely saw it myself," Norman said, "But I heard the screams… The scream of utter fear. The cameras were down, I tried calling Albert on my way to the room, and then they both crashed through the doors. Nari, whatever remained of her, and… Cindy. I… remember, her crying for her mother to stop as she sobbed, moving just like Spiderman."
Otto paused for a long moment, staring at Norman, "...You told me Nari Moon was an unfortunate victim in an experiment. That's why we had her as Patient 0 for your 'cure.'"
"She was. And you saw how excellently it worked."
"It only spawned a Demon in the end."
Norman closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Is there a reason why you wanted me to tell you this?"
"I asked for information, Norman, not a sob story. But, yes. I suspect, Nari's 'outburst' that hospitalized Cindy was a result of her 'instinct' going out of control. She, as Widow, has been taking children, hasn't she? Even in here, the tales of the 'Pied Piper' isn't kept from reaching us."
"Not only that, but, conveniently, different men and women have been going missing, too. A week ago, before that 'altercation' between mother and daughter, a boy went missing, but his grandmother was found beaten to death. Turns out, that 'grandmother' wasn't his. He's been missing from the mid-west since two years ago."
"Given her supposed outburst, I suppose its similar to how insects exhibit strange and erratic behaviors. When Manti mate, the male the throws himself into the mouth of the female after they are finished. Perhaps that obsessiveness she exhibited in your story was the trigger."
Norman took a deep breath, sighed, shook his head, "...So this was a false alarm. That psychopath is sitting out there and watching us while we are scrambling around on his chess board!"
"There's no other game to play other than the one put before us, Norman. Or have you forgotten that?"
"The progress on the suits?"
"Tch.. I've already sent over the plans and design - better hope your people don't have any more fancy ideas."
"We're going after HIM! Such ideas are guaranteed to come up!"
"Hmph."
"Rhino, Scorpion, Vulture, Electro, Li, and now," Norman pointed to Otto through the glass, "you. None of you were able to stop him. That, is the one truth that both of us cannot deny. Not even that black symbiote, if it were still alive. The spectrum is against us, Otto. More so now that he has that white symbiote suit. We have to treat him as an absolute enemy, because if he was against society he would absolutely be as such."
"You've made your empire on the bones of others' work that you have forgotten how to stack them, much less make them. How many enemies would have gotten to you if you didn't have your protection, Norman?"
"Your point?"
"Hmm…"
"Well?"
"...And your end?"
Norman snorted, fixed his tie, "Slow, but coming along smoothly. Did you really expect your project to be done so quickly?"
"No, but as long as it reaches completion the speed doesn't matter."
"How fast can the Mk. II's be assembled? Will they work this time?"
"That, depends on your team, Norman, and whether or not you push for abstract ideas like that limit remover. You have samples of the webs the Spiders use, correct?"
"Of course. My team is already using that to improve the suits' imperviousness to them."
"Good. You still have enough sense to be smart. Smart enough, at least."
Norman stared intensely at Otto for a moment, "And my son?"
"What else can be done?"
"...Excuse me?"
"I've done the work, Norman. Over. And over. That black symbiote was the only thing keeping him alive. We're men of science, Norman. Not magic. Not. Miracles." He then gazed at Norman with a hardened look in his eye, "Yet, ironically, we are certainly capable of making monsters of ourselves, huh? Or rather… our own kin."
Norman's face flared in anger and his fist smashed against the glass in a loud thump. At the moment of impact, he growled - from the pain, from the frustration, from the unfairness.
One, two, three, -
On the fourth slam, he growled again, his nostrils flaring and his eyes wild.
"There it is… Who you really are underneath, Norman."
Norman took a moment to take deep breaths as he slowly removed his fist from the glass pane separating him and Otto. He fixed his hair, his attire, and took a deep breath. He stared at Otto with intense heat for a long moment before he suddenly pointed at Otto with a deep scowl. He walked off, and Otto's eyes followed him until he disappeared from sight. The only thing that Otto could do from that spectacle was chuckle and shake his head.
"...The Paper King."
He went to the small desk in his cell and opened up the two separate files that had information on Cindy and on Nari. Norman had given him both as a way to help give him inspiration for the slayer suits. He read through them both, particularly Cindy's, taking note of the early notes that were made when Cindy was a child.
The notes about her mutation,
The notes about how her eating habits had her eat more calories than a normal person,
Her biology after gaining the ability to shoot organic webs.
He then looked at the file containing the information on Nari, skimming through the reports and notes, of how deep Nari went with her madness and how much the transfusion changed Nari's biology. How no matter how much Nari's mind deteriorated, how through recorded evidence, which was presented as printed out screenshots in the file, Nari exhibited more and more spider-like behavioral traits over time, and that she never harmed Cindy. Not even once even after her transformation had become so severe. There were even notes on the concoctions that Nari had made - how they slowed Cindy's mutation until it stabilized and, ultimately, stopped.
Otto went back to Cindy's file, and read through a particular report.
He hummed in thought. He reached for the pen off to the side and began to write in his journal.
Norman reached into his pocket and pulled his phone, he called, "The G Serum prepared?"
"Genesis is at sixty percent, sir. We're going to do the second set of experiments soon."
"Make it eighty or god help you." He hung up.
He made another call -
"The suit finished?"
"First iteration has been completed and we're about to start testing."
"Wait for me. I'll do it myself."