I stared at him dumbfounded. Was this a sign from God? Had my prayers been answered almost instantly? It’s like my danger sense was more than just for danger. It had to be something closer to intuition. The older man stepped forward to shake my hand as Quinten stood up behind me. I shook it almost in disbelief. He moved to Quinten shaking his hand as well.
“Dr Gonzales, it’s good to see you again” Quinten said.
“Ricardo’s fine.” he replied. “Look at you two! You’re all grown up” he said. The pale guy next to him, coughed, looking slightly annoyed.
“Ah yes, where are my manners. Lucas, Quinten. This is Lindon Johnson, my lab assistant” Ricardo said. Lindon scowled, giving us a quick nod.
“Sorry this was so sudden. I saw Quinten and thought I recognised him, and here the two of you are. It’s great to see you two again”
“It’s good to see you too” Quinten said. I just stared at Ricardo nodding blankly. Lindon mumbled something to Ricardo.
“Apologies boys, but I’ve got to get going. Hopefully we could see each other again in the near future” he said. Crap, he was leaving. How the hell did I get him to stay? How the hell did I even tell him about my entire situation? No, I was thinking about too much at once. Was telling him about the situation the right thing to do? Could I even trust him? I wasn’t sure, but if I didn’t, who knew what else could happen to my body.
I needed to take it one step at a time. I needed to stay in contact with him. How did I do that? Shit he was leaving, I needed to say something. Anything.
“Where are you going?!” I blurted out. He turned back to me with a soft smile.
“Our lab. We’re doing some research on animals, and Lindon needs a bit of help with something he left waiting. Sorry I had to cut our meeting short” he said. A lab? Perfect.
“Could we see it?!” I said desperately, “What you’re working on?”. Quinten elbowed me, but Ricardo’s eyes lit up.
“Well if we’re allowed to show you then I don’t see why not. It’d be great to get youngsters interested in our field of work. Right Lindon?” he said, grinning. Lindon’s scowl grew, but he didn’t say anything, and Ricardo laughed. I felt my fear dissipate and relief wash over me. If I could get him alone then maybe I’d be able to explain the situation.
“I wouldn’t want to bother you” Quinten said, sheepishly stepping in front of me.
“Nonsense. We’d be glad to have you” Ricardo said.
“Ok” Quinten said, a hint of surprise in his voice, “I think we’ll have to ask our teachers first”.
We made our way over to Ms Jane, and after a quick discussion, our group of six were making our way through the personnel only corridors. Cole and Callum spoke amongst themselves excitedly, whilst Gwen talked with Lindon and Ricardo. I trailed slightly behind Quinten, Jaden and Eric, my mind racing. I’d taken the first step, but what now? I wasn’t sure if I could get the two of us alone, or if I could even trust him in the first place. I’d been banking on the fact that he was trustworthy, but now that I actually had a chance to tell him, the rose tint was starting to fade.
I mean I barely even remembered the guy. I hadn’t seen him in years. And even then, I’d never really known him. I didn’t even know he’d worked here. He’d just been a friend of mum and dad. How the hell was I supposed to talk to him about my situation and trust him to keep it a secret. For all I knew he’d blow me off as crazy, or worse just tell everyone. Then I really was finished. I felt my stomach churn. I hated this. Regardless of what I did I was risking my chance at a normal life. I mean I couldn’t just keep making money off of this forever. If I did it long enough one day I’d slip up and my identity would get exposed. And it definitely wasn’t worth it if people kept expecting me to save them every time I went for a swing. But even if I quit the fun stuff, there was still the chance my body mutated in some unforeseen way, and my life was screwed anyway. Shit. I shuddered. I had to go through with this, regardless of whether or not it was a pipe dream. If the alternative was waking up one day to find out I’d grown eight legs, then I was ok with risking exposure. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. Well I’d probably hate the fame but who knows, I might be able to make serious money off of it.
We stopped by a door and Lindon pressed his keycard. With a hiss the door slid across the floor, revealing a short walkway with glass windows either side. Underneath us we could see various scientists working with equipment. We exited the other side of the walkway, with another swipe of the keycard.
There were armed guards here. Ricardo assured us it was ok, and that Oscorp, the financial backers for most of the research projects were excessive with their security measures.
“Nothing dangerous ever happens here” he said, as we stepped into another hallway, and got into a lift. We made our way up to the third, and highest floor, the glass door raising us through the semi-sphere that was the main body of the building. Eric leaned close to the window watching as we ascended the floors.
We stepped out, and continued walking down a short corridor, coming to a stop at the end. Lindon swiped his card this time, and we stepped inside a high tech lab, filled with strange machines. Rows of glass boxes with mice chittering away, lined the room, organised in rows of coloured tabs. Lindon quickly made his way over to one of the boxes and pulled on some gloves.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Welcome to our lab” Ricardo said smiling. “Here we research the effects of certain energies on the living organisms. I’ll give you a quick rundown of everything we do, and feel free to ask any questions. But first, everyone please grab a pair of goggles to your right. We don’t want any accidents.”
-
Ricardo led us around the room, explaining the complexities of the various machines, and their exact uses to us, before moving on to what exactly they were doing to the mice. It essentially boiled down to the fact that they were charging water and other fluids with different energies, which was confusing in and of itself, and then giving groups of mice different combinations of the fluids to see responses.
“Most of the time nothing happens” Lindon said, his voice devoid of any emotion, “but sometimes we do get side-effects. The point of the experiments are to get positive ones, but I’m not going to sugar coat it, most of the time the mice that do get affected die. In some case they mutate before they die, but that’s usually if the fluids administered aren’t distilled enough. Sometimes the energies they emit are enough to kill other living organisms too, though that usually fades quite quickly” he said. The air in the room seemed to shift slightly. Ricardo chuckled nervously.
“Lindon can be a bit blunt sometimes. It’s not as bad as it seems. Like Lindon says most of the time nothing happens. Only twelve mice have died, and eight mice have experienced positive side-effects. Improvements in health, and physical capability. We even had a case where a positively affected mice emitted energy that resulted in the other mice gaining positive effects, in some cases even altering physical appearance to that more similar to the original mouse. There’s even evidence for positive changes in the genes expressed, though we’ve only just begun researching that.” Everyone seemed to relax given the new information, but my heart froze.
“Do the mice that die experience any positive side effects?” I said. Ricardo’s face fell for a second, but he instantly replaced it with a smile.
“Great question. Typically, yes. That sounds a bit strange but it means there’s probably a certain threshold related to specific combinations of the fluids that when passed leads to death. Once we find the threshold, our research will flourish” he said. Lindon frowned and turned away to take a look at some of the other mice. The others asked a few questions, but I just stood frozen, feeling numb.
I’m pretty sure whatever I’d come into contact with had been changed somehow, by some kind of energy. All the side-effects had been listed. It represented me to a tee, and even explained Chrysalis. If I was right, it meant I could die. Or maybe I was already dying. Holy shit. I had to tell her. I quickly excused myself for the toilet, leaving the lab and sprinting down the hall. I burst inside and locked myself in the stall. I pulled out my burner phone, and quickly typed away, fumbling with the keys. The message was a mess, with typos throughout, but I’d sent it to her.
I waited a few seconds and decided to call instead. I called waited a few rings before the call picked up. It was noisy, the sounds of kids shouting and talking over one another filling the background. A voice I didn’t recognise picked up.
“Hello?” a girl’s voice said. I paused.
“Who’re you?” I asked. The sounds muffled for a second and I heard a few muffled voices before another response.
“That should be my question. Why’re you calling Amy?” the voice responded. I froze. These must have been her school friends. Did she not have a second phone? Ok, that was a bit unreasonable, but why did her friends just have her phone, had something happened to her?
“Hello?” the voice said.
“Why’d you have her phone?” I said, more annoyed than expected.
“Geez, you’ve got an attitude. Just answer my question” she said. Suddenly there were a few muffled cries, and the sound of rushing air.
“Sorry about that. Who’s this?” a familiar voice said over the phone.
“Uh… I think I you’re friend told me your civilian name” I mumbled. There was a pause.
“Well shit. Why’re you calling instead of texting? Did something happen?”
“I- we might be in trouble”
“Why?”
“Our powers. I think I figured out how we got them. It’s bad. Really bad”
“What? Wait how?” she said, steadily getting more concerned.
“I don’t want to alarm you, but did you get your powers recently. Like within the past month”
“Yeah?”
“Did you come into contact with any weird… mice?”
“What? I- I don’t think so. Are you saying a mouse did this?”
“I’m not sure. If it did, then I need you to get to the Bederson Research Centre”
“What? Slow down, you’re not making any sense”
“Sorry I- no, this is important.” I took a breath. “Ok, just meet me. We can meet at six, by the Research Centre. I’ll explain everything there”.
-
I sat on top of the building opposite the research centre. I hadn’t managed to get Ricardo alone because he’d been busy and we’d been steered away to another lab with everyone else. Now I was stuck trying to think of ways to get to him. Thankfully, Chrysalis hadn’t arrived yet, but I was still coming up with nothing. I bit my thumb nervously. If this didn’t pan out we could be screwed. At the same time, I was starting to think maybe I was worrying about nothing. I hadn’t even asked if they did tests on other types of animals. I didn’t even know if Chrysalis had gotten her powers by other means. But even then, a nagging feeling sat at the back of my mind, similar to the buzzing from my sixth sense. I shuddered, a cold wind passing over me.
Fluttering sounded overhead and I turned to see Chrysalis land a few feet away.
“Spider, what’s this about? A week of silence and then you call out of the blue?” she said. I stood up.
“Sorry, this is important though”.
“Wait, why’re you so tall?”
“I- don’t worry, we need to talk about this first”.
“Talk about what? You’re scaring me”
“I already said it over the phone but we might be in danger. I mean, we could die. We might be okay, but we need to get checked first”
“What?! We could die?! What’re you talking about?!”
“Calm down. I know it sounds crazy, but I went on a school trip to the research centre today. I think I saw the experiment that gave us our powers. Some of the subjects they had mutated, like we have. Then they died.” Chrysalis stared at me her expression hard to make out, her mask obscuring her eyes.
“I didn’t figure out most of the details, but I think I’m right. No, I know I am. I can’t explain it, but we need to get tested or have someone figure out what happened to us”
“I- how?”
“The scientist who’s working on the project, I know him. He can help us” I lied. I felt bad lying, but it was for her own good. If she left and I was right, then she could be in serious danger. Chrysalis stood frozen for a second but nodded.
“Do we have to go inside or…” she trailed off. I paused and looked at her then looked away.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to get in with our costumes” I said. I glanced back to her and saw her face shift. I needed to give her assurance. I stepped back from the edge of the roof and took off my mask. I brushed the mop of hair out of my eyes and stuck out my hand.
“I’m Lucas” I said. She paused looking from my hand to my face. She took my hand, and pulled off her mask, grinning stupidly. She had brown eyes, high cheekbones and an awkwardly set nose. Her fighting prowess suddenly made a lot more sense.
“Amy” she said. I smiled slightly, then turned back to the research centre.
“We’ll have to go inside in normal clothes, and then I’ll be able to get a hold of our guy” I said.
“I hope you know what you’re doing” Amy said. I felt my heart jump a little. I hope I did too.