Chapter 5
Peter wakes up in the same room he was in before. The lightbulbs are still hanging by thin wire, but the smoke alarm is absent. The cot was gone. His back aches. He can barely remember in his haze. The guards dragging him under the sink of the room, the sounds of sticky duct tape being unrolled. A multibillion-dollar company uses duct tape. The thought of it almost made Peter burst into hysterics.
The guards taped his wrists behind his back around the drainpipe under the bare sink. The position forced him into an awkward, forward leaning position stress position.
That had been hours ago. Maybe it was a few minutes go. Despite the warmth coming from his body, peter shivers. It feels like the time he had gotten bronchitis when he was small; aching, wheezing and hot. He tries to shift the ache in his arms in shoulders, but it only strains his joints more.
The door to the rooms opens. In steps; big surprise it’s Norman Osborn.
“Hello Peter.”
“Seriously?’ he groans. “Let me go, you psychotic-,”
Norman backhands Peter across the face, fast and sharp. It’s not hard enough to do any damage, just enough to sting.
“Careful.” He warns, too late.
He considers Peter for a moment.
“I must admit, I did underestimate you. The pen trick- very nice. You’re very intelligent.”
“Golly, thanks mister.” Peter bites, tasting blood on the inside of his cheek.
“You remind me of my son. Brilliant, but unable to put in the work.”
Peter rolls his eyes. He knows all about Osborn’s son. He’s been in every tabloid known to mankind, photographed leaving parties with celebrities. He’d even been arrested for a DUI. The man’s mugshot has been plastered on the news for weeks.
“Would you kidnap your own son to get him to do what you want?”
Norman’s lip mold into him a tight, terse smile and Peter suddenly feels like a fish about to be devoured by a shark.
“Fuck you.” Peter stumbles out, horrified at the idea. Maybe Harry Osborn had a good reason for doing all those drugs in the first place.
“May people want to. Tell me peter, have you ever heard of the chaos theory?”
Peter licks his lips. His vision is fuzzy.
“In math?”
“Yes.” Osborn says patiently.
“Yeah.” Peter says, not willing to explain.
“It’s a theory that non-linear dynamical systems that are seemingly random are actually deterministic from much simpler equations.” Osborn finishes for him.
“Duh.” Peter says, trying his best to roll his eyes. Norman’s eye twitches slightly and Peter knows he’s done his job of annoying the billionaire.
“Things that seem complex and random aren’t really.” Peter spits out, shivering. Why is he so cold? He hadn’t been cold before.
“I apply that to my business. Vaccines, cures, even the stock market. To the normal person they seem chaotic and random. But to men like you and me, Peter, they are simple. I’m sure you understand.”
“Sure,” Peter says “I do. And because you suck and everything you’re doing right now sucks; even though I understand you I am not going to work for you.”
Norman swallows hard, his Adam’s apple rough and prominent.
“I would advise you to reconsider.”
“Look,” Peter coughs out. His chest hurts from the dust of the vents. “I’m not going to write anything down, I won’t do any calculations, and I’m sure as hell not going to share any of my data. You will never get Q-Blood. You can screw off.”
Norman gives him a cold smile, like he had expected this.
“You know boy, you sound thirsty. Here.”
Norman walks around to the side of the sink and Peter hears him put the stopper into the drain and turn on the tap. Norman winks at Peter and leaves the room. It’s only maybe a minute later that Peter starts to feel water trickle into his hair.
So, he gets wet. Of course, he does. With the water spilling over the edge of the sink, it’s impossible to avoid. Peter shivers, it feels like the temperature of the room has dropped a few degrees, or maybe six.
He blinks a few times, trying to get the water to stop from getting into his eyes. The one small reprieve is that there’s a drain in the bottom of the floor, so he only has to focus on not freezing to death instead of freezing to death AND drowning.
The position is impossible for him to get comfortable in, and he’s shaking with the effort of finding a place to be without hurting himself.
Maybe all of this had been a bad idea.
Gwen had been so excited. So had he. Even now, trapped under the flowing water of a sink in some billionaire’s building he still gets the nerves in his stomach, thinking about the project.
The idea had been simple enough at first; nanobots small enough to enter someone through the blood stream. It was Gwen’s idea to try to implement it as a propriety tracking device. A few thousand micrometers of the nanomachines small enough to fit into a specialized injector.
They could use it keep track of missing children, or patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Peter suggested the idea of using it to monitor vital signs from anywhere in the world; doctors could keep track of vital signs; blood levels in diabetics, the blood pressure in people with hypertension; the possibilities were endless.
Then they started to think.
Any tech entering the bloodstream may be a bad idea. They had both considered the possibilities of Q-Blood being dangerous, but with the right patents and the right investor and company, maybe they could make it work.
They had been blinded by the possibilities.
It wasn’t until Peter had gotten confronted that they both realized what a bad idea their project was. They were low on the science totem pole as things go; Peter didn’t even have a degree and Gwen had only co-authored a couple of scientific articles. Who the hell did they think they were, taking on such a huge project?
The only question was how did Oscorp find out? They were the only two who knew anything about the project. Peter didn’t have any family or close friends to think of, and he was too busy to meet someone to date. Gwen lived separately from her parents and had sworn up and down she never told her boyfriend about Q-Blood.
The water is still cold, but for some reason Peter is feeling warm, like he’s getting a fever. There’s a pulsating, pounding in his temple, like someone was trying to pick his brains out with a rock hammer.
Without meaning to, his thoughts drift to May. May, who had never smoked a day of her life and still had lung cancer. The woman who raised him through his younger years and teenage angst. Who cleaned him up after Flash had punched him in the nose and took him to doctor appointments. Who would burn everything she tried to make and end up ordering Thai-food or pizza, watching reruns of M*A*S*H on TV Land late at night, way past the time Peter should have gone to bed. He wonders, briefly, if he will die here. He’s not sure if he believes in an afterlife, but it would be nice if there was. Just to hold May in his arms again.
He allows his mind to drift, anything to take his mind off the water. It was starting to get…annoying. He was sure that the water was cold, but now it feels almost warm against his skin. Everything feels warm against his skin.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath and tries to sleep.