13 Chapter 13: Montage Music is needed Pt.4
Meanwhile, with Mr.Stan: ( )
---
Wednesday, September 16, 2006
9:23 am
Oscorp Industries, N.Y.C
Conners Pov.
---
"And is there a reason why you're so late this morning... Mr.Conners?" a monotone male voice dryly asked me from the side, snapping me out of my daze as my heart felt like it was bursting out of my chest. Turning around in surprise, I saw a middle-aged Irish man leaning against the wall in my office, his dismissive gaze meeting my own.
"O-Oh, Mr.Menken, I didn't notice you there. What are you doing in my office?" I asked as he stood up from behind my desk, dusting off his three-piece suit as he did so. An outfit that must have cost a fortune to tailor, let alone buy.
"I wouldn't have to be here if you were at the board meeting earlier, but since you find the need to waste my valuable time, here we are."
I grimace at that; taking to this me is anything but pleasant, "My apologies, Mr. Menken, I need to check on my son with his con-"
"Please do spare me of your irrelevant excuses, Conners." He said, cutting me off with a hand jester. "The only thing I wish is the answer to the following question: What is the process for Eidechse-001?" Gritting my teeth, I hold back the nervousness upon hearing that name.
'Fuck! Of all the times for this to occur!' Coughing in my hand to compose myself, I looked at my supervisor calmly. "Why, Mr.Menken, surely you can understand the benefits of the serum that I am currently working on. If I focused on it, the company could provide medicine to help many people with disabilities. I don't understand why you're assisting us in replicating Erskine's work."
"Because that's exactly why we hired you in the first place," Menken said evenly. "We already had this discussion in detail. The super soldier serum has been a long-term goal for many worldwide, each country gunning to make their own, no thanks to Captain America's well-known feats. Yet, that knowledge of the formula sadly went with Erskine due to his untimely demise after his success, along with the good captain disappearing with his body not being found. Leaving the rest of the world to start from scratch in its recreation since the Cold War. Only to be met with failure... after failure... after failure... after failure." He continued getting ever so closer with each saying of the phase. "And Oscorp will not tolerate failure."
"If this is about what happened back in the labs, I told you it wasn't my fault. I ward the last project lead how replicating the soldier serum through genetically modified arachnids was boarder on insane. Not to mention the unethical methods and highly volatile equipment we worked with..." I said, running my hand through my hair, thinking about the first run of creating Eidechse-001 and the one that brought me into it. Menken, his part, however, continued to stare me down with his ever-present dismissive stare as if everything I said meant nothing to him. In hindsight, that was probably the truth.
He rolled his eyes, "I swear, you just like Octavius with all the complaining you do. What is your point, Mr.Menken?"
"My "Point" is that I don't want to do it! All I wanted was to help people, people like..." I paused as my thoughts shifted briefly toward remembering what I'd lost. "Yet the only thing YOU want is another weapon out in the world. For ME to create that weapon through MY work, and as a doctor... and as a human being, I can't and won't let that. I will continue to work on my original serum, and if you ever force me to make this war magnet, I will take this up with both the broad or, better yet, the police!" With all of my anger and frustration, I made my statement known. Boss or not, he legally can't force me to conduct this type of research. That is not why I'm so close to creating something that can help people. However, my small internal victory was cut when Menken did what I had never seen him do for the past 3 1/2 years.
Menken was laughing...
And he was doing so to my face...
"What, What so damn funny?" I said with my perplexity, quickly turning into anger. Was he treating this as a joke?
"For someone being one of our scientists, it's abstaining to see that you bear the graphs of your situation," Menken stated while still chuckling. 'My situation?' he continued. "I'm afraid I must drop this etiquette to help you understand. The truth is, Conners, you, and anyone who works under Mr.Osborn are one thing and one thing only—an asset. A tool for our uses to profit from, be it a medicine or a weapon. It seems to be a bit of a...what's the word kids use, trend? The trend for scientists like yourself to focus on the technology and check instead of the fine print on paper." I felt I was getting slapped in the face the more this man spoke; never before had I been disrespected to this degree. 'Fine then! If you think that much of my value, then I might as well cut ties with you fuckers! As if I need this!'
Yet before I could live up to that promise, what Menken said next gave me pause. "And if you somehow quit and left our services, it would be a significant loss but still manageable. Besides, there's always a market for promising candidates to help with this delicate project. Wouldn't you say so, Conners?" It took me almost a millisecond to figure out what he was implying while watching his knowing smirk turn into a grin.
"You wouldn't..." I said through gritted teeth. He wouldn't dare to mention that he would bring those two into this. Stacey and Parker were brilliant and promising youths. That's where I can safely say they genuinely wanted to help the world with their minds. Though I am unsure about Ms. Stacy's opinion, Peter detests the notion of making weapons like the soldier's serum if what is fought with his, I believe, twin brother was to go by. Yet, if Menkin's words were valid, then-
"You didn't expect Oscorp to allow you to give those internships without benefiting?"
"T-Then I have half a mind to call the police! What you're doing is blatant retaliation, and I won't let you, the broad, or even Osborn get away with this in court!"
My "supervisor" shook his head in mock disappointment, "I see you're still not getting it, you poor naive fool. Suppose you took this issue to the courtroom and got yourself a lawyer. What would happen when one lawyer goes against three, five, ten, or fifteen? I could honestly keep going if I wanted to. And on want evidence could you provide the judge? After all, you're only doing simply what you sign up for." My mind was racing, trying to find an answer to what Menken said to show I could win this case.
...but nothing came, and Menken knew it.
He touched my shoulder and continued in a low tone, "Listen to me well, Conners. You're not the first person that we will destroy in the courtroom, and you won't be the last. We can easily make your life a living hell. You'll be nothing more than one of those struggling scientists in the world doing experiments from their garage, barely making ends meet. We can destroy your reputation, so no other company can ever allow you to be in their Labs again, and even if you wet, you will just be putting those two terms of yours into the same hole you dug yourself into. However, I consider myself a very forgiving man and willing to look past this discussion as if it never happened; all I ask is that you do what you told me and work on what we say to make. Or else, you won't be able to help "people" like you always wanted unless you are already comfortable being handicapped. Are we clear on this?" he said, glancing at my prosthetic arm and then back to me, waiting for my response.
'...Damn him...Fucking damn him!!!'
"Yes...sir."
"Good man," Menkin patted my shoulder joyfully before approaching the door. "Now complete your task like the useful asset, and then you can spend the rest of your time with those lizards. How you go about it is not my problem, but I expect to see the first "useful" sample of Eidechse-001 by the beginning of next year and no later. You may also keep those interns of yours busy until then." He then stops before exiting. "Also, I'm sure this goes without saying that your conversation will remain between us, does it?" Reluctantly, I could only shake my head, agreeing that I wouldn't say anything before I worsened my situation.
Hearing my office door finally close, I stood there for a good minute, fuming over what just happened, before I fell almost everything off my desk in a rage. How dare he treat me like this, as if I'm nothing more than an object to be used for their benefit. I came to Oscrop to help people like myself and Billy, not to create weapons for these-
-These monsters.
*Sigh* Calm down, Conners. You can't afford to let your anger take over right now. However, someday, I will make Menken for all this. For forcing me to make this serum, and directly or disrespecting and humiliating me like this. he will pay, and when I'm done, Oscorp will we receive justice. But first, I have a super soldier serum to reengineer. It can't be that hard to make something, right?
...Right?
---
Wednesday, September 15, 2006
1:45 pm
Brooklyn, New York
Alex Pov.
---
*Screech, Screech, Screech *
'...No, that's not it.'
*Screech, Screech, Screech*
'...Hmmm, No, that's still too much. Maybe if I brought it down to 25%, it would be safe.' I thought to myself for what seemed like the tenth time today. Studying the arm-size holes cleanly pierced into an empty 20-foot-long shipping crate. Every time I've worked on this for the past couple of hours, one question always appears. How do heroes learn to manage their strength? Honestly, this is a lot tougher than it looks: adjusting to a power like super strength when you recently just got it and within the time frame I put myself into. It's almost like learning a brand-new weapon before going to war the next day.
This is why I found myself in an abandoned shipping yard trying to get a handle on one of the central powers in my 'current' set before even dawning the mask. I can honestly think of two good reasons for this case. For starters, I don't wait for the whole killing option to be a thing now. Supervillains might be one thing, but using my full strength on regular criminals like thugs seems a bit overkill, in my opinion. You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man while leaving puddles of human body parts everywhere you come. Also, it will help to keep a little profile if no one realizes that I have the strength to lift a car over my head with one hand, just as far as a football. Okay, that might be my paranoia, but still, what if someone put you into each other that Alex Parker and Spider-Man have super strength and could be the same person all because I possibly punch Flash through a wall? It will be embarrassing if I fuck up this whole secret identity thing because of that.
'And this spider refuses to be embarrassed like that.'
...Huh, I kind of like saying that.
Anyway, back to my tests, as I jab at the now-beaten old shipping crate, this time doing as I said and applying 25% of my strength to it. With an audible *clang* ringing throughout the area, I moved my hand from the impact to see an indent at least 4 1/2 inches deep and with a light imprint of a fist.
"Alright, now we are getting somewhere. If I drop the prestige down by, let's say, ten, then I think this should be close to combat-ready." I said while glancing over my previous handiwork with the other crates around the shipping yard. Some of them have several dents on them; others have holes. Even a few are smashed or scattered about the area as if they were thrown in different directions. Nodding to myself in approval, I was on my way to my belongings and started chatting and making notes of all the data I collected from the test.
In times like this, I was glad to have a genius of a brother like Peter in this world. He did push me to be better and or catch up with him in terms of intelligence. Though maybe in his case, it was indirectly, it was still for a good cause; I mean, you can't put a helpful guy in the chair while being dumb as shit. Speaking of which, it was time for my final test before taking a break. Reaching into my duffel bag, I pulled out a baseball.
Since Nate can show me some stuff from his memories, though it's still random, I can get other media sources now and then, generally through dreams. The idea for this test came from one of those memories of another universe that revolves around heroes, which is where this baseball comes in.
After redesigning it, this ball can now calculate the force it took to throw it, and then that data gets sent to my laptop, which I have with me.
"Okay, now let's make sure everything is good to go. Force processors, check. Air pressure detectors, check. Data transmitter, check. Tracking beacon, check. Alright, should be good." I said while doing a quick double-check on the equipment. "So if the memories are correct, this test should tell me how much I have in my limbs, mostly my arms." Moving a reasonable distance away, I began the test. "Young rookie Alex Parker is on the field as this neck-and-neck game between the Yankees and the Mets seems to be coming to a close. The crowd is dead quiet; the batter is currently at two strikes, and it comes down to this final one. Alex makes the pitch and..."
*Crack*
"STRIKE!!!!!" After a quick air cracking, I yelled as I threw the ball with every bit of my strength. I watched as the ball was sent sore in the sky at breakneck speed, disappearing after 5 seconds. "They did it! They finally did it! The Mets have won the World Series! Just listen to this roaring crowd. *Fake cheering* Fake cheering*" Chuckling to myself, I took the time to enjoy the small moment of peace. That peace was cut off when an audible *beep* was trying for my laptop, so I went over to check the data and widened my eyes slightly at what I saw...
1843 newtons.
"Wow...just wow." stunned, that was the only thing I could manage to say. I was expecting something close to the thousands but not over. 'No wonder I had difficulty with my strength until now.' frankly, I was lucky enough to only break the door knobs all over the house and my bed frame. Yet this also brings up some new questions too. If I'm that strong, how durable am I compared to that? If Peter could lift a tank or part of a building at times of need, could I do that easily? If that's the case, how strong will everyone else I'm going to face in the future be? Is this just a chance that only affects me?
"Wait, Alex, slow your role. As fun as it may be to geek out or panic from this new info, remember you are on a time limit." That was true; new info aside, if I can't get a handle on these powers, then life will be complicated going forward. Not to mention, the longer I wait, the more the city will be in trouble, and seeing that there are no other superheroes around or people who act like superheroes, I have to do this before things get worse. That said, I took the time to write down this new data in my notes for a comparison later.
With this set of tests being done for now, I can go ahead and give myself a break and get something to eat before I continue, maybe doing some combat exercises before the next power to test out tonight.
This spider needs to learn the ins and outs of spider sense before putting on the mask.
---
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M BACK EVERYONE!!!!!! Okay, jokes aside, I know I've been gone for quite a while and...I'm sorry to keep you all waiting. I had some personal news get to my mood to get this chapter out there. Let me be clear that I'm never dropping the story; life happens sometimes, you know. Anyway, here are some things notes before I leave.
1) Yes, I've seen Accress the Spider-verse, and give me a few ideas
2) I'm so hyped for the new Spider-Man game, and if chapters get even slower to come out, then you know what to blame.
3) Quick question for all of you: Would you even care if I made a patron and discord to help support my current and future stories? I'll still write them regardless; I just wanted to ask.
Right, I'm going to get started on the next chapter. See you then!
Stan out~
