Variant Strain

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Peter didn't really have an opportunity to think about what he did next as reflex took over.

He jumped to one side, hurling Warren away from him as he did so. The move was just in time to save both of them from being skewered by a pair of gray-skinned ropes of viral matting speared into the brick wall they had just been standing in front of.

The ropes writhed briefly, then pulled themselves out of the holes they'd just punched into the brick and stone behind it, dust shaking loose from the gray material. The ends of each rope-- tentacle, those were tentacles-- were capped by three razor-tipped shards of bone. Then a second pair of tentacles shot towards him and he found himself diving forward to avoid those.

He swung his gaze back to Jessica who was now standing on the back of the heavily modified Rhino. The modified Rhino was ripping itself free from the mound of flesh that had been part of Hank's central neural cluster. It's arms and legs were now elongated in comparison to its torso, making the limbs seem spindly to the size of its broad back that Jessica was using as a platform.

From roughly where its ribs should have been, the four, serpentine grey ropes of viral flesh extended out, writhing sinuously.

No, Peter realized, Purposefully.

The bone shards at their tips surrounded a singular glowing red half-sphere, that Peter recognized immediately as an eye. The tentacles were orienting themselves on him with little spastic twitches and writhing movements.

The moment he noticed the red glowing eyes at the ends of the tentacles were oriented on him once more, he leapt out of the way. They all shot forward, smashing into the wall behind him, shattering concrete and scattering bits of shredded gray viral matting.

Jessica giggled and applauded his move.

For a moment as the tentacles passed too close to him, the whiff of her scent in the wake of their passing caused his vision to ripple momentarily and for just a brief moment, he could see himself running as Jessica, once more in her fifties sock-hop schoolgirl attire chased after.

Playing tag as they both laughed.

That game usually didn't involve sharpened bone blades.

Usually.

His new leap ended up with him landing next to the still stunned Warren, who clearly hadn't quite caught up with what was going on.

The tentacles retracted once more and began the ponderous effort of reorienting on their prey.

Peter wasn't going to give them an opportunity.

He scooped Warren up by the back of his shirt and ducked into the broken wall where the man had first come in through.

The tentacles smashed into the spot both of them had occupied only a moment before, hard enough that shards of broken stone ineffectually spattered against Peter's back.

His vision shifted again, briefly dipping him into Jessica's hallucinatory world. He could hear the bus engines revving. They were still playing tag, but her friends were pretty much ready to go.

They laughed as they called out to her.

Peter cursed under his breath as he ran down the corridor, still carrying Warren with him.

Why are we taking Warren with us? Donna asked curiously.

Savin' people outta sheer reflex, looks like. Cletus opined.

He's slowing us down, Connors suggested. If we absolutely have to, we could use him to block those tentacles, but that wouldn't work for very long.

If we want to stop her friends from making friends out of the rest of Manhattan, we need to get away from her and down to the tracks, Donna pointed out.

Nagat lok dom-ba chell, Cain's grumbled.

"I know we're heading the wrong way!" Peter growled back. He felt a brief sensation of shifting at the nape of his neck and suddenly his visual field shifted to encompass a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Enough to see behind him.

Warren was screaming in a distressingly high voice the whole time.

The comparatively spindly legs of Jessica's modified Rhino mount didn't seem to give it a great deal of speed, but it was keeping up with Peter with quick, even gait that wasn't quite closing the distance. The real danger continued to come from the tentacles that were pressing the attack.

Peter repeatedly leaped, jinked and at a few points adjusted his mass to run along the walls and ceiling to avoid the rapid strikes. The few moments the tentacles took to aim at him were just barely enough to allow him to keep out of their reach and what he assumed were a set of eyes on the back of his neck were giving him a good idea of where they were about to hit. Even then he wasn't completely unable to avoid a few cuts here and there as the edges of the tentacles caught him. Small, bleeding wounds that he would seal almost as soon as they were made.

"I-I-I c-cuh-can't buh-believe you saved me!" Warren panted out as Peter dodged another unsusccessful tentatcle strike by jinking to one side.

Peter growled under his breath, "Me neither."

He wasn't even sure why he'd bothered holding on to him, but by the same token, it just didn't feel right just leaving him to Jessica's tender mercies.

No matter how richly he deserved them, Connors flatly stated.

Peter shut those thoughts out. He could already pick out the pattern in the strikes that the tentacles launched, but he was rapidly running out of corridor as it came abruptly to a T-intersection and they were starting to orient on him faster and faster.

It was learning.

He needed to get out of the narrow corridors. More open space would make dodging easier for him. Except, that would also give the Rhino thing more room to run at its full speed. Peter knew the close confines were helping them. Those awkwardly long legs couldn't quite bend right or move with all the range of motion they should have. A rough calculation told him that in the open, they would have caught up to him by now.

So the narrow confines were somewhat a blessing, but they were also keeping him from doing anything about the bigger problem that was looming. The Rhinos pulling the trains would be leaving.

Soon.

He had no idea how much time he had.

He had no idea what to do. He had to keep Jessica occupied if he wanted to have any chance of stopping her mob.

If he even could do anything to that many infected all at once.

Sounds like you could use a helping hand, Cletus pointed out with the mental equivalent of an eyebrow waggle.

What do you expect me to-- Peter thought back, and the thought broke off sharply as his attention was called to Warren.

We were going to kill him anyway, or let him die sooner or later,, Connors pointed out, with a slight vindictive undertone that Peter was sure he didn't like. At least this way he'll be useful.

No! I wasn't! Peter responded hotly, barely leaping clear of another strike.

Is now really the time to argue about this? Donna murmured.

Y'know it's awful silly to lie to yourself, Cletus chuckled. We need to know what he knows. We need to be in two places at once. Two birds, one stone.

Warren took that moment to scream, "S-s-she's guh-gaining o-on us!"

Tam si, blis un, Cain grumbled.

They were coming up on another turn, but Peter's free arm shifted, blurring with black and red tendrils as it reshaped itself into its shield form.

The eyes at his back showed him that the blade-ended tentacles shot towards them once more, but this time he didn't dodge aside.

His feet blurred into talons, bringing them to a screeching halt as they caught on and cut into the cement underfoot. He whirled around, catching the sharp ends of the tentacles on the thick, resilient material of his shield, before slamming that shield flat against the wall, pinning the writhing tentacles to it, holding them in place.

"W-wuh-what are you doing?! W-why a-a-are you s-st-stopping?! She'll kill us!" The last words came out in an high-pitched squeal that bore no trace of his usual stutter.

Peter's face was calm as he faced the approaching Jessica, then glanced over to Warren.

"No. You don't have to worry about her killing you," He replied almost too softly for Warren to hear.

"Y-you'll pr-pro-protect me?" Warren stuttered desperately, hope flaring in his eyes.

Peter cringed inwardly, but it didn't show on his face. He took a deep breath.

It was Cletus who answered with Peter's mouth. "Nah. Y'all are gonna be dead long before she catches up to us."

He exhaled a gout of red smoke into Warren's shocked face.

Warren screamed as his body exploded into writhing, blurring tendrils, assemblers and disassemblers going at their bloody work.

That seemed to startle Jessica for a moment and Peter caught sight of her point of view. The both of them no longer running. Just stopped from their game of tag. He was holding her hand up. A picture of flirtatious intimacy.

"Let's dance!" Cletus yelled, the voice coming from Peter's mouth as well as the blurring and shifting burden in his hands.

The tendrils were beginning to settle down, retreating back from extremities, revealing Cletus's fine-boned, slender fingers and his grinning, red-haired face.

He'd expected the red mist would allow him to consume another infected without having to directly use his feeding tendrils... but the proof was even then just settling into his mind. He could feel Warren's scream echo softly even as parts of that mind settled into place.

Peter put those thoughts out of his head at that moment as he had more pressing concerns. He hurled Cletus underhand towards Jessica and her mount, sending him flying through the air.

He shifted his shield arm back to normal, giving it a snapping movement to release the tentacles from the hardened flesh as he shot around the corner, leaving Cletus to keep her occupied.

His rear-facing eyes cause sight of Cletus's long, dexterous fingers, tipped as they were in thin, razor sharp claws reaching out for Jessica's face.

For her eyes.

Except she saw it as him-- she saw Cletus as him-- asking her to dance, reaching out to caress her face.

Her dainty, impossibly strong hands caught Cletus's wrists, stopping him just a fraction of an inch from gouging out her eyes with the blades in his thumbs.

She laughed and carelessly flung him into a wall hard enough to crack the concrete.

Cletus was cursing in Peter's head, but he could feel him-- his other body-- already rolling back to his feet and bouncing off the walls and ceiling of the corridor, looking for an angle to strike from that Jessica wouldn't be able to anticipate. Cletus was blindingly fast, but Jessica seemed to be able to match his speed.

Peter shuddered and ran, cutting back across another corridor, his sense of direction prompting him to head back to the open platform and the rails.

He'd have to leave Jessica to Cletus.

They would be... dancing, his own voice finished for him in a drawl.

He had to get to her 'friends'.

You have no plan, Cain's piped up, speaking English once more, at least that moment.

"Same plan we always have," Peter muttered back.

Run in, improvise like crazy and hope we don't die, Donna murmured.

And eat everything we can, Cletus added with a breathless laugh.

"It's worked so far!" Peter shot back defensively.

They burst out of the office area and on to the platform area.

The milling drones had moved to one side and the trains with their Rhino 'engines' were making their ponderous way forward. Peter could see the strain in the individual Rhinos as the train cars moved slowly forward, but he could also see that they were building up speed with every thunderous step.

The first car was just about to enter the gap in the seal that the drones had excavated.

Near the hallway he'd first entered through on the platform, he saw a handful of Oscorp Security men, the survivors of the Russian Weapon Plus program-- the Soldyat-- using guns and their own fists to try and fight through the drones that were keeping them from getting closer.

The drones closest were fighting back as well. Whatever invisibility the Oscorp strain had given them apparently didn't hold up too well when dealing with massed numbers. It would have been difficult to ignore them much less walk around them when the drones were pressed so tightly against one another.

That was when he heard the ring tone.

"Who's calling--" Peter began to ask and realized he had a better question. He shouldn't have had signal down here, not even with the Ultron upgraded phones he had.

Di t'yu, Cain replied.

What do you mean not our phones? He thought back hurriedly.

Can... someone... get... that... Cletus panted breathily, I'm a... little... busy... here...

Why would--?

Connors cut in, Warren must have had a phone when we... took him.

Peter frowned and said aloud, "How are we supposed to..." then realized with a start that his hand had blurred and a familiar yet unfamliiar phone had appeared in it.

Deciding to worry about how the phone which had probably been in Warren's pocket, could have gotten from where Cletus was to his hand for another time, he looked at the phone which was still giving a buzzing, trilling ring. The caller ID said Jameson.

Do we really have time for this? Donna asked, exasperated.

For the man who appears to have set all of this up? I, for one, would like to know what he has to say to Warren, Connors replied. Perhaps something we can use.

Peter nodded and thumbed the 'answer' softkey and spoke in Warren's stuttering voice , "H-h-hell-hello?"

There was a man's voice on the other end. Deep and familiar, screaming a stream of invective and abuse. That went on for a few seconds before the caller on the other end had suddenly gotten hold of himself and the voice, now cold and angry spoke, "You had one job. One. Why is Able Team reporting Madam Hydra as on the move?"

Warren's memories threw up the appropriate response. "Sc-scenario tuh-twelve." Subject has developed an immunity to the suppressor.

"... dammit." There was another explosion of profanity, "I don't need this right now, Warren! I've got General Talbot asking awkward questions. Shield Team is on its way here to give me an 'interview'. Now you tell me she's waking up?!"

Peter didn't know if the man actually expected a response and was trying to think of something appropriate to say that wouldn't raise any suspicions, but obviously Jameson was too distracted to notice a difference.

"Forget it." Jameson finally snapped out. "Timetable's moved up. Get back to central. There's no point in you staying down there. We're a go for Barndoor. "

The call dropped and Peter reeled as Warren's memories provided the specifics for Operation Barndoor.

Jameson already had Thunderbolts troops specifically loyal to him at the bridges. A few more in the subway tunnels and the docks. Not many, since the majority of Thunderbolts personnel were already deployed in Queens, but enough. Especially with their numbers being bolstered by the Soldyat in their disguise of Oscorp security personnel.

The bombs would do the real work. Seal the tunnels. Collapse the bridges. Sink the ferries.

They would isolate Manhattan and leave only his own people on the island. He was sure they had some other plans in place for aircraft, but Colonel Jameson would claim that he was doing it under his authority in order to prevent the spread of Hydra. It would even be true at that.

Just conveniently leaving out the fact that he allowed-- encouraged-- it to happen.

Worry about this later, Donna murmured, We can't do anything about what Jameson is about to do. We can't get to any of the places where he will be detonating bombs in time to stop them.

Conners added, This is actually a good thing. Jessica's mob will be forced to limit themselves to just Manhattan.

Not so good for anyone still in Manhattan, Peter growled sub-audibly. Can't we tell anyone?

Our phones have no signal. Cain replied. Jaban dok laka t'yu.

Peter was about to begin cursing when he realized he was still holding Warren's phone.

A phone that had just received a call.

"This phone does."

Well... who are we going to call? Donna pressed. In the back of their collective mind, someone began to hum the Ghostbusters theme.

He hurriedly tapped 911 and got back nothing but a busy signal. "That's not supposed to happen!" He cried out in exasperation.

Its probably limited to a few possible destinations, Connors murmured. It's not really a normal phone, it's some sort of hand terminal that's still connected to the local wireless network down here.

Peter nodded as some more of Hank's memories about his phone network presented themselves. "Someone... oh."

He keyed in the rapid response number and prayed.

The phone beeped twice before a rough, tired voice replied, "This is Hammerhea-- dammit, sorry. I mean Shield Nine."

Peter grinned at the familiar voice. "Sargeant Talbot. This is P-- I mean, Parker."

"Parker?! How did you get this freque--?"

"Never mind. We don't have a lot of time, you need to let Captain Bradley know. Colonel Jameson is about to run something called Operation Barndoor. There's bombs in the tunnels, the bridges and on the ferries. He wants to seal Manhattan."

"What? Why? What're yo--" The voice cut off suddenly and there was muttering in the background before Talbot's voice came back louder, "It's Parker, sir. Says Jameson's trying to seal Manhattan."

"Just listen!" Peter continued, raising his voice and hoping it would be clear. "There's a ton of infected under what's left of Gentek tower. I mean a lot. Enough to completely infect all of Manhattan, by my best estimate, within a day or two. They're just about to leave and they are going to use old subway and drainage tunnels to try and spread as far around Manhattan as possible."

He could hear faint cursing from the other end.

"I will try to stop them here, but just... see if you guys can figure something out. Stop Jameson."

"Parker," Bradley's deep voice spoke. "What do you need us to--"

"I don't know! I'm... just... just please... think of something! I need to go." Peter sighed, cutting the connection and reabsorbing the phone.

That was underwhelming, Donna said.

At least its not just us working on the problem now, Peter thought back harshly.

We do what we can with what's in our reach, Donna replied gently.

Peter's eyesight was still covering a full three hundred and sixty degrees around him, so he let his attention sweep across the tightly massed ranks of drones and other infected surrounding the Rhino pulled train cars.

That's not really 'in our reach', Peter thought morosely.

M'g tagu K'lrt, Cain graveled.

You saw what happened to those Soldyat. We don't have that stealth option, Peter thought back, understanding the gist without exactly fully comprehending the words.

Which in hindsight really wouldn't have helped him much. After all, what exactly was he going to do if he were to manage to make himself invisible to them? Stand in front of the tracks? Hope he could stall until the Thunderbolts pulled off some sort of miracle?

He blinked and stared. There really was only a single set of tracks going directly through the gap. If he could seal that up, he could stop them.

Or at least delay the Rhino trains long enough that we might have a chance to deal with them permanently, Donna supplied.

How effective is your gun arm at--? Peter began to ask as they leaped off the platform and began to run down the tracks, dodging around the drones where he could.

I think that shot we took in the corridor is as good as it gets, Donna replied. I don't believe I have anything that can take on this many at once.

At least not in the form of a gravitic cannon. Connors added.

He sighed. Of course. That would've made it too easy. He took a deep breath and shifted... something in him. He wasn't entirely certain what, but it was a shift in his scent. An intentional one. Not the scent of the tainted Hydra to hide him from their senses, but rather the same scent as the drones.

To seem like one of them.

It was easier than trying to cut his way through.

They didn't step around him as they would have around the tainted Hydra infectees. Rather they... jostled. They moved around him and he found himself getting swept into the crowd's movements. Reading it and following it with an instinct that made sense as he followed it. Whatever it was, it was what directed the drones to their next tasks, to their routes, all without breaking coordination.

Peter had his own destination in mind and followed the available path through the infected to reach it.

He broke through the worst of the crowd and finally reached the tracks, an open area.

He sprinted for the train car that was beginning to disappear into the gap in the hardened bone plug that had sealed the tunnel. It was still moving very slowly, the measured pace of the oversized train-pulling Rhino still echoing thunderously in the narrow tunnel.

The Hunters on the roof of the train cars and handful of Spiders seemed to eye him curiously, but none attacked as he drew up next to the Rhino.

The few drones that were still in the vicinity were mostly clinging to the sides of the train cars. Ready to deploy themselves and begin feeding the mobile hives within any biomass-- people-- they ran across.

Up close the Rhino seemed even more massive. To Peter's eyes it almost seemed twice the size of any other Rhino he'd run into before. It's eyes were flaring brilliant red even as the chains embedded into its hide clanked and clinked with every bone-jarring step it took. There was a scent coming off of it. Not just the carrion of Hydra. Salt and rust. Blood in the air. Peter could see where the chains had bit into its dead, gray flesh. Dark brown stains colored the chains closest to its hide.

Now what? He asked himself.

This would normally be the point where Cletus would tell you to kill it, Donna supplied.

Little... busy... Cletus's voice panted back, a confused welter of impressions implying constant motion, tentacles and claws flashing. Someone... else... do... it... for... a... change...

Cain simply sent an image of his blade arm striking the chained Rhino's skull at full speed, splitting it in half. The image helpfully included a comparisson to an overripe watermelon.

Peter glanced at the Rhino, then back to the train cars, with their cargo. Even if we kill it, its not like they don't have enough drones to just start pushing the train down the tracks. Maybe even bring another Rhino from the rear to replace it and start shoving.

And the Hunters and Spiders jump us, Connors added, In these close confines, we might not have enough room to avoid them all.

And its too much to hope that we can maybe try and hijack Jessica's control of the drones in our immediate vicinity? Peter thought hurriedly.

Can't. Connors replied. We don't have the neural architecture for it. We're too... He paused, as though trying to find the right word, Human. Three bodies already,we can do maybe two more before.things fall apart.

Two birds. One stone, Cain's voice rumbled with sudden clarity. Stop them and give them a target at the same time. I can handle one more.

Peter eyed the chained Rhino as it continued on its path.

Can we even...? Peter began to ask, but mental blue prints in words he couldn't fully grasp ran through his mind, detailing what would need to be done. Descriptions where single words encompassed whole paragraphs worth of genetics concepts, building towards an elegant result. Every time he reached for the totality of the meanings of the individual words, he could feel the information slip away from him.

But he understood enough. Preferential design. Neurological wiring specific for the immense load of sensory data being handled. The Rhino was actually the best option. Simplified neuro-muscular linkages. An almost rudimentary nervous system that had minimal pain receptors. Less distracting. Slow. Steady. Robust.

Available.

Peter turned, jogging backwards on the track surefootedly. The eyes at his back making the task simple.

He took a deep breath and breathed out red smoke.

The Rhino walked into the smoke and didn't even seem to slow.

"It's not working." Peter groaned.

Intya. Cain replied flatly.

It kept walking even as its hide and muscles began to twitch and spasm.

Its face seemed to take on an expression of confusion as its tiny brain seemed to recognize that something was going horribly wrong.

It didn't break stride even as its flesh exploded into a mass of blurring tendrils. The chains seemed to fall away as it kept moving, until finally the chains simply pooled to a mass of links around the black and red mass of tendrils which was even then shrinking in size. Compressing down. More of its mass being redistributed for other uses. More material shifting to wherever it was Pym Particle mass was shunted off to.

The still humanoid mass, stopped in mid-stride and turned. The train's momentum carried it forward and by all rights should have plowed into the mass of tendrils and dragged it forward. Or pulled it under.

Two appendages extended out, the whipping, shifting tendrils settling into a pair of tremendously muscular arms that had thick veins glowing a brilliant red.

Those hands slammed into the front of the train car, crumpling the metal around it and breaking glass.

The entire train to a sudden, screeching halt, the almost liquid flesh of the mobile hives within the lead train car sloshed out of the broken window, lolling obscenely as it pushed out of the window frame, jagged cuts from the broken glass in the pale and flaccid flesh bleeding copiously.

Cain came out larger than a Hunter, but smaller than a regular Rhino. He wore something similar to Donna's tactical vest, but open and with nothing underneath, a pair of black combat fatigues and combat boots. His bare arms held hugely bulging veins that glowed with crimson light. His chest was also criss-crossed by those veins of Pym Particles. His hair was a huge, untamed mane around a face, flowing all the way down to his shoulders.

He had huge, solid features that strongly resembled Peter, but his eyes were entirely red from end to end, devoid of pupil, iris or white. The only other odd feature was that the left half of his face was covered in a mass of keloids and scars. The flesh seemed half-melted against his skull.

"What happened to your fa--?" Peter began to ask, but Connors cut him off.

Final appearance of the new bodies are based on self-image. Whatever it was that Jessica did to us, damaged his.

Cain gave a snarling bellow and leaned down to grab hold of some of the links of chain at his feet. He swung, sending a handful of chains whirling in an arc above his head. He caught a Spider in the side of the head on his first swing, practically ripping its head off.

That was all the prompting the rest needed to leap down from the now stopped train car and begin trying to dog-pile him.

Cain didn't move like a Hunter or a Rhino. In fact he seemed to barely move at all. Peter stared in surprise as the coordinated attack from the train just seemed to flow around his oversized form. Wherever an attack was, he simply wasn't. Any misstep on the part of his attackers and Cain was simply there. Massive hands lashing out with immense strength sending the infected into one another or into the walls with what should have been lethal blows.

It wasn't even as if he were faster than they were. If anything, he was moving slower than the Hunters. It was simply that once they'd committed to whatever attack or move they'd made, Cain had already moved out of the way.

Peter could almost make out shadows prefacing every movement the infected were about to make. Like after-images only they were showing what was about to happen.

Connors answered Peter's unspoken question. Cain handles our enhanced senses. Including the ones that let us intercept the communications between infected that handle their coordination. They can fight the way they do because they know what the others will do. And now so do we.

Except we've never seen it like this. At best, I'd have... a feeling. Just kind of an instinct to not be where they try to hit me, Peter thought back.

Before Cain had to share system resources with all of us. There's only so many neurons available since we're keeping to this size and shape. Only so many cross-connections we can make physically. Now he has his own brain to offload some of the processing to.

This is fascinating, Donna murmured in a voice that indicated she found it anything but. Cain's got their attention, Cletus has Jessica's. We need to do what we need done.

Which would be to stop the biggest mass of infected on top of multiple mobile hives Peter had ever seen. He frowned and murmured aloud, "Jameson wanted all of this to happen, but I can't imagine they'd just have left all of this happening down here without some sort of control over--"

He paused as a thought-- a memory-- from Warren made itself known. The explosives that Hank Pym had had planted down here had been tampered with, but they hadn't exactly been disabled.

The detonation codes had been changed, which was why they hadn't gone off when Pym had triggered them.

Peter grinned.

Warren had been the one to tamper with them.

He'd known the correct codes.

And now Peter did too.

That's not the entire answer, Connors interjected. The underground structures that were part of Gentek tower are all rigged to collapse, which should take care of anything in the tunnels, but the train tracks and platform areas used to be filled with Pym's flesh and have no bombs. Neither does this tunnel. Even if we blow the explosives, the bulk of the infected will be fine.

But they'll be stuck, Peter insisted, the blueprints and tunnel maps pulling themselves up in his mind's eye, the placement of the bombs would close off this area from the rest of New York.

Except they can leave through this tunnel.

Then we can take care of sealing this tunnel by hand. Peter stalked grimly towards the stalled train car.

With what? Connors flat voice sounded faintly exasperated.

The subway cars have an internal volume of roughly sixty feet long, by nine feet wide by roughly eight feet in height. Peter murmured allowing the numbers to play themselves out. Four car train. All of it filled with nothing but mobile hives. Human flesh is around sixty three pounds per square foot.

"That's around five hundred metric tons of flesh in just this train alone."

His fingers blurred to claws just as he reached one of the shattered windows.

"I think that should be just about enough biomass to do it." Peter said aloud before he plunged his claws into the Hive's flesh.

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