Variant Strain

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The scents led him to another set of double doors, also locked with a digital keypad.

On a whim, he keyed in the same code he'd used for the cold-storage room and the door opened with a click, revealing another set of double doors beyond. Airlock set-up, Peter noted to himself. Same as the Bellevue facility.

The same code unlocked the second set of doors.

He frowned at that. Either security was appallingly lax and all the doors opened to the same code... or Hank had given him some sort of general code that was good for all the doors... Or, his mind drawled, He expected you to go out this way and made sure you'd be able to go right on through.

That last thought was even more troubling and aggravating. Maybe the Hive had had good intentions. Of a sort. But what he'd done so far hadn't made Peter any more inclined to trust him. On some cold, detached logical level Peter could understand perfectly, but at a more knee-jerk emotional level, it just made him dislike Hank all the more.

He stepped through the second set of double doors and found himself no longer in the sterile, institutional green corridors in the bowels of Gentek.

Bowels actually seemed a very appropriate word.

The sewer reek through the doors smashed into him like a hammer-blow. A solid wall of stench that was impossible to shut out. Threading through it, Jessica and the rubber and violence scents that followed the Thunderbolts around were also heavily present. They felt close by.

The area through the doors was a huge, open space. It didn't have the feel of being closed in or underground, even though it clearly still was.

He was on a catwalk, suspended ten feet above vast cylindrical reservoirs of what he was certain was reeking raw sewage. The liquid was a thick greenish black ooze that had strange white foam and other less identifiable and even more unsavory things floating in it. The walls of the reservoir, rising just a few feet above the level of the sewage was thickly coated with the bloody rust and black of the viral matting material. There was a strange sheen to the material, as though it were even slimier than normal. Here and there, Peter's enhanced vision could pick out streaks of algal green where whatever it was seemed to be growing on the fleshy material.

The material seemed to pulse and swell in time to some unheard heartbeat, churning and aerating the bubbling mass of sewage. Not incidentally throwing up a reeking spray of material that almost splashed to the level of the catwalk, but did a fine job of making sure the smell lingered in the air.

The walls of the rest of the open chamber looked odd. There was no disguising that this was part of a Hive. The viral matting hung thick on the walls, but there were areas where Peter could pick out large, jagged white structures poking through the material. He frowned at that. Either the whole place had been roughly carved out of the local bedrock, which given the reservoirs below didn't seem likely... or there were massive and irregular bones underneath the fleshy material.

The more he thought about it, the more likely the 'bones' explanation made sense. Hives probably did have their own internal structures even if the ones he'd seen so far tended to rely on buildings to hold them up. Hank was old for a Hive. He must have developed in ways Peter couldn't even imagine.

Here and there, he could spot naked infected clinging to the walls of the reservoirs. They all sported over-long arms that reached out with clawed hands to pull detritus from the churning sewage. Their feet sank into the viral matting, holding them in place as they leaned out to scoop up the things mixed in with the muck.

None were close enough for Peter to see more than glimpses of the muck-encrusted infectees, but even that was enough to show him that their eyes were blank and dead as they carried out their tasks.

The catwalk extended all the way across the massive high-ceilinged chamber. It opened up to another corridor, but it had been done in raw, unfinished brick and strung with viral matting. Peter guessed that the roughness of the brickwork had been intentional. It gave the rust-brown fleshy material better purchase.

He walked on through, following the scent of Jessica and the Thunderbolts. The sewer smell abated somewhat, but not by much. There simply was no disguising the scent from the open sewage reservoirs.

Peter supposed those were Hank's stomachs. He was also certain that it would have been the final fate of the other bodies.

Ain't you glad you saved your Ma from that? Cletus asked.

He shuddered, trying to wall off that thought. It made sense though. Leaving Hydra lying around, no matter how inert it might have been would've been a potential disaster. From a cold, logical perspective it made perfect sense to feed them to Hank. The potential biohazard was rendered into a resource and it prevented surprises like the Vulture that had spontaneously revived itself.

Peter had been doing it himself. It was the sure-fire way to ensure that infected stayed down. Eating them prevented them from coming back.

Logic.

Of course, the logic and rationality behind the decision didn't keep Peter's self-loathing and disgust at bay. It hadn't all been about keeping the infectees down. It hadn't simply been pure logic. The hunger had gnawed at him. The insidious need to feed on other infected that he'd kept clamped down entirely by sheer willpower made it impossible to lie to himself. Doing that... consuming other infected as a way to keep them down was an excuse.

It was a valid one, but at the end of the day, it was just a way for him to justify consuming biomass. Consuming infected. Consuming victims. He wondered how long he'd be able to keep that up. He'd been doing his best to ignore those questions, but it had been getting harder. It was just so... easy... to simply take them into himself. If they were dead, even more so. Less guilt. They were already dead anyway. They weren't using their bodies anymore.

At that point they weren't people. Just... underdone meat.

He had needed them to heal himself. To top off his reserves. He shook his head realizing with a start that perhaps Hank's point of view was starting to make more sense to him. He had to wonder how long he could keep going and still consider himself human.

He had to wonder if Hank still considered himself human.

The faint gunfire snapped him out of his introspection and he heard the Hunter bark inside his head, Focus.

He took off at a run then, passing through the rust matted corridors. He tried not to pay too much attention to how closely the corridor resembled what would could see from a colonoscopy. He could also imagine that the smell was probably comparable.

Sometimes a good imagination and access to the internet were detrimental to one's peace of mind.

It didn't help that there were no longer any fluorescent lights, but the walls were shot through with thick threads of glowing red that lit everything in dim, bloody shades. The glow was the same as what he'd seen in the eyes of other infected. The same red threads he'd seen on the bodies of the Rhino or the haze surrounding the Vulture.

He passed through a multitude of branching corridors, none of which were set at the expected right angles, but seemed to divide in gentler, much more organic angles. The map Hank had provided for his phone were completely useless. None of these corridors showed up. They were also deep enough underground that he couldn't get a GPS signal.

He was on his own.

At various junctions he could see rings of what could only be described as muscles lining floor, walls and ceiling. In a few cases, he could see into some corridors where they seemed closed off by a wall of that same muscle.

Sphincters. That sewage has to go through something to get into and out of those vats, his mind drawled. He was certain that he truly was in the bowels of the Gentek building.

Literally.

The sounds of gunfire grew louder and soon he could make out screaming and shouting as well. It grew louder and louder until Peter finally burst past a half-closed sphincter into a massive organic looking chamber. All around and at various levels, other half-opened sphincters studded the fleshy, rust-colored walls.

In the far end of the room, his eyes sharpened into focus and he could see one particular opening that had unlit brickwork beyond. The actual sewers, he realized. There was sewer water trickling past the opening, creating a large puddle of greenish-brown around the entrance. That, however, was less important than the veritable swarm of infected that had clustered around the opening.

The infected were attacking another tunnel, where the gunfire was coming from. Small clusters would rush forward, Peter could make out one or more Hunters hidden in screens of surging Trackers and half-transformed infected. Whatever weapons were being used would blow through several of the regular-sized infected easily. Once a clear line of fire opened up, Hunter heads would explode.

But it was a slow process and whoever the infected were fighting-- obviously the Thunderbolts-- Peter told himself, they were losing ground. Every moment, the Hunters were ranging closer and closer. Even as more bodies fell, those that did survive inched towards the still open corridor.

He also saw that the viral matting on the floor released feeding tendrils to absorb the dead and wounded infected almost as fast as they fell.

Peter moved cautiously out of his own corridor, staying well away and trying to see more. He circled the chamber, sticking close to the viral matter walls.

Jessica's heady scent was thick in the air and he could almost feel it clawing at his consciousness. Wanting to make him relax. It worked on him, promising calm and sweetness and rest.

Hank's own aggressively aged scent seemed to be fighting it. Urging anger. Demanding action, not obedience.

He pinpointed the source of Jessica's scent as being strongest from the sewer opening, but it suffused the chamber.

He focused as much of his sense of smell as he could on the sewer smell. It was terrible, but it cut through both scents and seemed a much safer bet.

He finally got to a spot where he could see into the corridor where the shots were coming from and found the Thunderbolts team pushed well back into the corridor, almost to a corner. Despite the anonymous nature of their uniforms, Peter was able to identify some of the men slowly pulling away from the crowd of infected.

Several of the Thunderbolts were sporting riot shields. He noted a few in particular that had a slot along the top that was being used by two of the Thunderbolts as a stand for their massive rifles. One of those was definitely Barton.

A bit closer to the infected, Talbot was using a shotgun to clear a path for Barton's shots.

There was a confusion of yellow as more of the Thunderbolts slowly walked backwards, continuing to inch away from the approaching infected.

In the forefront, almost among the infected already was Captain Bradley. He had a riot shield in one hand and some sort of massive hand canon that Peter was certain would have been immense in his hand, but seemed a perfect fit for the large man. A Hunter leaped at him and he barely brought the shield up in time to prevent a claw-swipe from gutting him.

Before Peter's reflexes could kick in to send him over there to help and before the Hunter could pull back for another try, Bradley had already slammed the barrel of his weapon into it's face and pulled the trigger. Whatever ammunition they were using seemed to be particularly effective, since the Hunter's head disintegrated.

Over the din of gunfire and infected growls and screams, one of the Thunderbolts suddenly called out, "Ready!" Peter recognized Schultz's voice as the man dashed away from the entrance to the corridor. He also recognized Petruski on the man's heels.

Bradley turned, preparing to move after them.

Something suddenly shot out of the milling mass of infected, almost too fast to be seen. Bradley sensed it at the last moment and turned, holding his shield back up to block whatever it was. It smashed into his shield, knocking him entirely off his feet, sending him backwards into an even larger man who had been using a shotgun.

The larger man caught Bradley, keeping him upright, but there was now something stuck to his shield. Peter could just barely make out some sort of bulbous mass with a massive blade struck right through the shield and only narrowly missing Bradley's forearm.

The mass was connected by a fibrous, organic cable that stretched back into the crowd of infected and Peter could see it writhing, trying to wrestle free of the shield and attack Bradley once more. Captain Bradley ripped the shield off his arm and threw it back into the crowd, sending another shot of his hand cannon into the fleshy bulb that still clung to the shield.

The cable of flesh attached to it seemed to be writhing in confusion as the resistance it had been fighting against suddenly disappeared.

"Parker." Jessica's voice suddenly rang out from seemingly all around them and the infected suddenly stopped moving and turned to look at Peter.

Oh, fun. Cletus drawled. Peter couldn't tell if his tone had been sarcastic or enthusiastic.

Peter noticed that Captain Bradley had also turned and spotted him, but he and the Thunderbolts seemed happy to use the distraction his appearance bought them. Bradley and the man who'd caught him ran deeper into the corridor just as explosives collapsed it behind them crushing a handful of infected and a few Hunters.

The concussion from the explosion rocked Peter back on his heels slightly, but his body automatically surged his mass to hold him still against it.

The milling infected parted before the sewer entrance and something slowly stalked through, filling almost the entire opening.

It was a Rhino-form infected. Or at least was very similar to one with a few changes. It ducked down to pass into the chamber where Peter could actually see it in full.

Jessica, sat on its left shoulder, looking as gorgeous and as sweetly curved as ever. She still wore the sheet she'd had from their initial meeting, but now, it had been artfully draped over her luscious form toga style and knotted over her left shoulder. She had her right hand on the Rhino's horn, which had been strangely twisted and shrunk down until it resembled a contoured ergonomic handhold rather than the weapon it should have been. There was a mass of calloused, gray flesh rising up around the Rhino's left shoulder that had transformed it into something resembling a cross between an armored paldron, a saddle and a throne. Jessica's legs were bent demurely, down the front of the Rhino's chest, but where her feet should have been pressed into the Rhino's massive pectoral, was a blob of pulsing viral matting that seemed to have merged her at the ankles to the Rhino, with the thick spiderweb of fleshy threads spread almost up to her knees. It made her seem to be wearing some very strange boots.

Her long black hair fell down her back and her eyes glowed fierce red. In contrast, the Rhino she was riding on seemed to have no eyes. Where they should have been, was a blank expanse of the thick, dead-gray skin.

Possible point of attack, gone. The Hunter noted bitterly.

I got a point of attack I'd like to use, Cletus leered.

Peter himself was trying to force his panic down. The mob of infected surrounding Jessica weren't acting like any other group that he'd encountered so far. All of those had pretty much been literal mobs. Those had been disorganized and acting more or less individually. Any cooperative action had mostly been acheived in only a vague sort of way. Even the Hive organized infected around Sandoval's deli had been an unruly, screaming mess.

This wasn't.

The infected surrounding Jessica were silent. Every single eye was on him and it felt like they regarded him with far more interest than he was comfortable with. Any interest was probably going to be distinctly uncomfortable in the long run, he drawled to himself.

Here and there he could pick out a few infected who were obviously street people. Homeless. They still had shreds of their clothes on. Others were in uniforms that resembled subway workers.

There were also the rats. The same staring, too-intelligent red-eyed rats he'd seen in Bellevue. They were standing on people's shoulders. Or on their heads. There were a lot more of them than Peter expected.

More disturbingly, were a handful that were dressed in Gentek security and maintenance uniforms. Some of Hank's lost infected, Peter guessed. Hank had told him he suspected she could take control away from him, but seeing them integrated so well among her other infected just drove the point home further.

There were over two hundred infected in the mob. Most were the half-turned Trackers that had the worst of both worlds, but there were at least twenty Hunters. He had no idea if she had even more reserves just inside the sewer. He'd gained a bit in terms of strength and skill since he'd last encountered Jessica, but the Hunter in his head insisted that the odds were terrible.

Duh, Donna interjected. We should run.

To where? There were so many of them... worse, he'd gotten turned around more than once. Peter suspected he wouldn't be able to find his way back to that entrance he'd used.

Away is important, Donna insisted. To will take care of itself.

He took a single backwards step, not breaking eye contact with Jessica.

We could take 'em, y'know. Cletus drawled. We start mowing them down and eat them as they come... the longer the fight gets the stronger we'll get. Can't lose.

Jessica smiled. ."You are Parker, aren't you?" She asked again, her voice still softly husky and sweet and somehow managing to carry despite the fact that they were over fifty feet apart. "Just not the one I know."

Talking was good too, Peter decided. "Er... yes. Parker. That's me. Hi." He said awkwardly.

"You're her son, Peter?" She asked, but continued before he could reply. "I think I should probably apologize. When we first met I'd just woken up and I'm not much of a morning person."

"Oh. You don't say..." Peter replied, a frozen rictus of a grin on his face.

She nodded, which sent interesting movements all across her body. "Mm-hmm," She drew the syllables out and made them sound almost inviting. "We obviously got off on the wrong foot. Do you mind if we started over?"

"Yeah, I'm sure you can see how sending five Hunters after someone and telling them to make it messy might make for a bad first impression." Peter replied sarcastically, his mouth had finally worked itself past the fear and right into frustrated anger.

She laughed. Throaty and rich and it sent a shiver down Peter's spine how... enticing she was. The situation could not possibly have been stranger but he could almost swear she was flirting with him.

She is, Donna whispered. You can't tell?

Peter fought down the frustration at that, pointedly replying in his mind that it was not a situation he'd encountered before.

Sure you have, Cletus chimed in. Your crazy redhead's all over you.

Jessica spoke once more, interrupting Peter's internal dialogue. "You're funny. I'm Jessica Drew."

"I know." Peter said, still looking for some sort of escape. Keeping the conversation, such as it was, moving along hopefully bought him more time. For what, he wasn't sure.

She continued, gesturing towards him with a free hand. "And you're Peter Parker."

"How do you know my name?" Peter blurted, with growing apprehension. He realized belatedly that she shouldn't have known his name. He couldn't think of how she would have known.

"Uncle Hank's messenger told me to expect you." Jessica replied, as she reached up and brushed a lock of hair over her ear. At the same time, the Rhino she was riding reached down to pet the head of one of the infected standing next to her.

Peter stared, recognizing the 'messenger'. He'd lost his lab coat and most of his shirt, but even their brief meeting had been memorable enough for Peter to have no problem at all identifying him.

The dry, flaking skin on his face continued down the exposed portions of his chest and onto the very real, very strangely muscled right arm he sported. That arm was misshapen, with a massively distorted upper arm bent unnaturally and stretched the entire thing almost down to his knees. The forearm bulged grotesquely and Peter could see tiny, stubby little fingers stuck onto that bulbous mass almost as an afterthought. That was what had twitched under the man's lab coat earlier, Peter realized with some relief.

Doctor Kurt Connors smiled at Peter. The flat, dead expression was gone. His eyes glittered with malicious glee now. His artificial arm was slung around his neck, twitching and flexing. It hung on by straps that looked like they normally would have gone across his chest and shoulders, but now dangled down the front of his chest like a bizarre tie, still connected by a few wires embedded into the shoulder of his over-sized arm.

Peter growled, "What are you doing here?!"

Connors blinked, a bifurcated tongue flicked out between dry smiling lips before he replied. "Pym needed a guinea pig. I was nominated. It appears your resistance isn't purely based on your strain."

Peter blinked and took another deep breath. He'd had to wander somewhat trying to pinpoint the source of the scents. Connors probably took some direct route. More of Hank's manipulation. Connors was clearly infected, but did still have his own mind after a fashion.

Hydra didn't last long outside a human body... obviously the only way Hank could preserve it was in someone else. Why hadn't he seen that coming? Hank had used the Connors to see if Peter's blood would grant resistance to Jessica. The answer, given how the Rhino continued to pet the clearly satisfied Connors' was obviously 'no'. The man still seemed rational. Which was a surprise. Except he was ensnared in Jessica's allure. Which wasn't.

Jessica shrugged, the quiet innocence on her expression belied by her glowing red eyes. "I don't know anything about that. Mr. Connors is my friend now."

"So I see." Peter said dryly. The majority of the infected in the area were standing perfectly still, but he noticed a handful were quietly making their way towards the other openings in the chamber. Cutting him off from those potential escape routes. He wasn't the only one stalling for time, he realized.

"Uncle Hank has a lot of friends. I never really got to make any friends when I was sick," She smiled brightly and gestured to the infected around her. "But I'm better now and everyone wants to be my friend." She paused and added, "Eventually."

She'd been bad enough when she'd first woken beneath Bellevue. Now Peter could feel his flesh crawl at her nonchalant cheerfulness at referring to the crowd of clearly controlled mindless infected surrounding her as her 'friends'.

She licked her lips.It seemed like a subconscious gesture. Perhaps nothing meant by it, but it just provided the wrong emphasis to her happy declarations. "We all love meeting new and interesting people."

Bizarrely the crowd of infected all nodded their heads in perfect synchronicity.

Peter's barely controlled revulsion threatened to give way to pure terror as he saw how things were likely to play out. Hank admitted that he wasn't immune to Jessica's allure. His blood wasn't going to help Hank at all on that score and he didn't have time to do much more with it and Jessica planned on... what? Hank had hundreds of infected inside him under his control. What would happen to New York if a fully mature, fully operational Hive with a large supply of biomass and a captive population of at least several hundred uninfected were suddenly turned over to Jessica's control? Call it a thousand or more infected in the heart of Manhattan, going from office building to office building.

Maybe even specifically sending out those of Hank's infected that could pass for normal. Meanwhile, except for Shield squad-- who are already on the run-- the Thunderbolts would be stuck dealing with the outbreak in Queens.

No one need even notice anything was wrong until it was too late.

Her gaze focused on Peter and he felt another wave of her allure slam into him with all the impact of a freight train. "That's what you are, really. Interesting. I suppose I didn't particularly like your mom..."

"I'll bet." Peter managed under his breath, grabbing on to the spike of irrational irritation that caused and using it to fan the waning anger from Hank's scent and... why was he so upset?

"... she kept telling me to sleep all the time and wouldn't let me go out on my own." Jessica continued, sticking her lower lip out and pouting. It would have been so much more endearing had she worn the expression under other circumstances. "Trying to act like she was my mom. Well, I showed her."

That brought up another flash of anger in Peter, but it was quickly smothered when she flashed him a gorgeously white smile that seemed to melt through what little resistance he managed to bring up, "But just because she and I didn't get along, doesn't mean we can't be friends, right?"

Peter's head felt fuzzy. Thoughts crawled, keeping him from conceptualizing exactly why it would've been a bad idea to become Jessica's friend. She just seemed... nice. It wouldn't be so bad, would it? And she was gorgeous, but had that air of someone who had no idea just how attractive they were... which ironically just heightened the allure.

Not that he cared. Right? But she just seemed so nice. It made sense to listen to her, right? He could do a few things for her. Like friends did for each other.

I can think of a couple of things I'd like to do to her, Cletus leered in his mind, the lustful tone cutting past his confusion. All friendly like.

The images he pulled up in his mind had Peter suddenly recoil mentally. His stomach clenched and this time he was sure it was in disgust.

Donna made an annoyed noise that just seemed to help clear his head even more.

Peter shook his head. It hadn't been anywhere near this strong before. He'd resisted her easily. What was different now?

She's not alone. The Hunter barked sharply. Some of the infected in that crowd are reinforcing her. You're getting hit harder than last time. If you pay attention you can pick out which ones smell like her.

Peter caught sight of the ones the Hunter meant. They were distinct in comparison to the rest of the infected around them, they were all completely bald and sported swollen, oversized faces. Like victims of a bad allergic reaction. A red haze lingered around their heads, obscuring their features. It was a testament to how used Peter had gotten to strangeness and Hydra induced deformities that if the Hunter hadn't called attention to them he wouldn't have even noticed them.

Becks, The Hunter pointed out. Beckoners. Beacons. Lures. All they can usually do is make people want to walk towards them. This is new to me.

Peter grit his teeth. The more he knew of her tricks, the easier it became to resist. It just pronounced the anger he felt even more. After a moment, he was finally able to grind out, "You killed my mom and my dad. You set things in motion that got my Uncle killed. You attacked my neighborhood. You infected and enslaved all these people and more! What makes you think we could ever be friends?!"

Her expression soured for a moment and Peter felt it stab into his heart, right past the anger. For a moment, he almost felt himself give in once more, but he stood his ground, feeling vaguely bolstered by the suddenly louder murmur of voices in the back of his head.

She shook her head and frowned, "I just want to be friends, Peter. I really do. You're strong like your mom. It's nice to have strong friends." She smiled once more, petting the top of the Rhino's massive head and gesturing with her free hand. "I have a lot of them. I'll introduce you. Then you'll see it won't be so bad if you joined me."

Peter had been so focused on Jessica that he'd almost missed Connors clenching the stubby little fingers of his oversized forearm. A wide, foot-long blade slid out of his wrist as he cocked the arm back. There almost wasn't enough time to register that, before the entire forearm, blade and all shot towards Peter, trailing a taut cable of flesh.

He barely threw himself aside to avoid it. The blade embedded itself on the floor of the chamber where Peter had been. He recognized it as whatever had attacked Bradley right before they left.

He was snapped out of his musing as he saw muscles begin to bunch at the base of the bulbous forearm. The cable of flesh was shot through with veins of brilliant red light, like the Rhino's body had been. Here and there he could pick out bones that resembled vertebra peeking through the thinly stretched skin and muscle. He traced it back and just barely had time to see Kurt Connors hurtling through the air, cackling, high and mad, being pulled forward at high speed on that length of flesh.

Even that seemed to be little more than a distraction as Hunters, each with their screen of infected, began to charge towards Peter as well, moving to flank him and cut him off from any chance of escape.

That was when the explosions started.

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