CH 25: Kidnap

It's been a few days since Marcus returned from his training trip.

And he was currently working on a subset of the Extremis which could be patented and commercialized to be used as a cure for many different diseases but it was still a long way to go.

On another note, Marcus had decided to expand his company towards the space-related field. At first, he just wanted to send a few satellites into space but after thinking about it for some time, he decided to expand the prospects of his company instead.

He was confident that, with his intellect, he could easily surpass the current space agencies in a few years. And then no one could stop him.

********

"Mr. Marcus, you asked for me?"

Killian entered Marcus' office; he appeared a little confused as to why he was asked to personally come into Marcus' office. Because most of the time, his orders were given directly by a phone call.

"Yeah, please take a seat, Mr. Killian."

And after Killian sat on the chair in front of him, Marcus started, "Mr. Killian, I have been thinking about the future of this company for a while, and after thinking about this a lot, I have come to the conclusion that I would like to appoint you as the president of our company."

Killian was stupefied at the sudden statement, even after being enhanced with Extremis, he stammered, "M..m..me! A..ar..are, you su..sure?"

Marcus just smiled, stood up, and went behind Killian, he put his hands on Killian's shoulder and said, "I am extremely sure, Mr. Killian. Your genius is not only in the field of science and academics but also in business and management, and most importantly, I trust you. So how about that? Would you be the one to realize my goals for this company?"

After hearing what Marcus said, Killian was excited, to say the least, he hurriedly got out of his astonishment and nodded his head, "I agree Mr. Marcus. I am thankful for your trust in me, and I will keep working to not let that trust go to waste."

Marcus smiled at Killian after his agreement and said, "Very well, you can sign your papers and start your work from today. Ask my secretary and she will show you to your new office."

"Thanks, Mr. Marcus." After saying so, Killian got up and left with giddy steps and happiness radiating from his face.

After Killian left, Marcus got back to his new nemesis "signing papers".

*******

"Ladies and Gentlemen, My wife Rosie and I would like to welcome you this Afternoon. But first, before we start, uhm- has anybody lost a large roll of $20 bills in a rubber band?... Because we found the rubber band."

Some people laughed at the bad joke, including Peter Parker. He was here today with his friend Harry Osborn, who were both in their high school freshman year.

Although Harry had no intention of coming to watch a science project, Peter, being a big nerd, dragged him here. Now, they were both here to watch Dr. Octavius' project unfold.

"...I am a terrible joker. But thank you for coming…Today, you will witness the birth of a new fusion-based energy source. Safe, renewable energy and cheap electricity for everyone. I sincerely thank Osborne industries for their investments and continuous support. Without them, this might've been just a dream."

Peter and Harry looked at each other for a second, amazed at the genius of the Doctor, and then looked back.

"And now, let me introduce my assistance."

Dr. Octavius went ahead and lifted off the veil and what appeared to be a machine with four legs of sorts, standing there.

"These four actuators are developed specifically for the sole purpose of creating successful fusion. They are impervious to heat and magnetism."

Octavius, while explaining, walked towards the machine and tapped some buttons, after which, the metallic belt connected to the machine, strapped itself to his waist.

And a snake-like structure originating from the metallic belt unfolded and climbed up his spine.

The structure had needles sticking out of it on both sides and a transparent chip with blue light at its end.

The needles plunged in, directly reaching Doc's spinal cord, causing his face to twitch and others drew a collective gasp at the sight.

Slowly, Doc lifted his hands, prompting the other four mechanical structures to lift alongside it. The structures turned out to be like mechanical tentacles with claws at their ends.

This display brought another set of gasps even from Harry and Peter, although Peter's gasp was from pure astonishment.

After the mechanical hands were lifted and their claws unfurled, people could see a television with their faces being shown on it from the perspective of the mechanical arms.

"These smart arms are controlled by my brain through a neural link. Nano-wires feed directly into my cerebellum, allowing me to use these arms and control the fusion reaction in an environment no human hand could enter."

Doc was just done with his explanation when a reporter asked, "Doctor if the artificial intelligence in the arms are as advanced as you suggest…couldn't that make you vulnerable to them?"

Doc just smiled and said, "How right you are. Which is why I developed this inhibitor chip to protect my higher brain functions. It means I maintain control of these arms, instead of them controlling me."

*****

Marcus knew that Dr. Octavius was going to show off his project today and he also knew that it would fail spectacularly and would also cause the death of his wife.

So, Marcus was waiting for the perfect opportunity to come and scoop him up and in the meantime, he had deployed a mini-drone to keep an eye on the situation.

*****

After donning his mechanical arms, Dr. Octavius started the exhibition of his main project.

His assistants removed the obstacles from the way, and a fusion reactor appeared in front of the audience.

Dr. Octavius moved forward and used his mechanical arms to check the fusion reactor a little, and then pressed a button that unveiled a small vial.

A smaller claw came out of his big mechanical claw and picked up the small sphere.

"Precious tritium is the fuel that makes this project go. There are only 25 pounds of it on the whole planet. I'd like to thank Norman Osborn and Oscorp Industries for providing it."

"Happy to pay the bills, Otto." Harry quipped from the side, trying to show off to his friend, Peter.

Octavius didn't pay him any attention as he was completely focused on his project.

The mechanical claw released the small tritium sphere in the middle of the fusion reactor, where it floated and then started to rapidly rotate.

Octavius pressed some buttons and did a final analysis of the input parameters.

After which, his wife came to give him his safety goggles and they both smiled at each other, happy that the project had finally come to fruition.

Octavius donned his safety goggles and turned back towards the reactor to finally start the reaction.

"Ladies and Gentlemen…Fasten your seatbelts!"

He operated the console and the reaction started. Multiple rays were directed toward the rotating sphere, which reacted with it, causing it to glow.

The audience and even Octavius himself waited suspensefully for the formation of the Protostar.

And slowly a yellow ball of light formed in the place of the tritium sphere.

The assistant monitoring the computer announced happily, "Doctor, we have a successful fusion reaction."

His announcement caused the audience to clap and even Octavius was happy with his success. He turned towards his wife who was also smiling and clapping.

"We are producing a 1000 megawatt surplus."

It was time for Octavius to employ his mechanical hands to control the reaction, and he did so.

Octavius was extremely proud of his achievement, he had finally realized his dream, "The power of the sun, in the palm of my hand."

But being a genius scientist didn't save Octavius from the accursed Murphy. And soon, things started to go wrong.

At first, small metallic objects started to get attracted by the sun's magnetic field, then the metal chandeliers and people's jewelry got sucked in.

Octavius appeared a little worried but he still tried to calm the people there, "Remain calm, it's only a small spike. It will soon stabilize."

But that wasn't true. The artificial sun overloaded and started to suck in every metallic thing from the surroundings.

Seeing that things were getting out of control, a reporter asked the people to evacuate the building, meanwhile, Octavius was still trying to control the overloading Fusion reaction.

Seeing this, Peter had an idea to stop the catastrophe, "Harry, come and help me. We can stop this."

Harry showed bravery and followed Peter to the board where the main power source for the reaction was located, but before they could do anything, a metallic claw from Octavius stopped them in their way.

"No! Stop, I can still control it."

But that insistence took a heavy price from Otto.

As the metallic frame of the windows was sucked in, the glasses were flung around the room due to the momentum, and the ensuing shower of glass shards took the life of his wife.

Hearing the scream of his wife, Otto turned around to see the corpse of his wife falling to the ground.

"ROSIE!"

And at the same moment, another disaster struck, a solar flare originating from the artificial sun, destroyed the inhibitor chip near his brain and caused a short circuit in the mechanical arms, which caused Otto to fall unconscious.

Taking this opportunity, Harry and Peter plugged off the machine with great effort and saved the day.

That feat showed that both the kids were quite brave, and even Harry was far better than the rotten Norman.

The same night…

An ambulance Parked directly at the gate of the hospital to which Otto was admitted. Then, the back doors were flung open and Marcus came out of it in a male nurse's garb and a mask on his face.

He made his way inside the hospital and found Dr. Octavius walking out alone from a destroyed operation theatre.

Marcus didn't waste any time talking or trying to convince Dr. Octavius, instead he just went up ahead and used his telekinesis to constrain him and carried him to the ambulance.

And because Marcus learned from his mistake, he used an Emp to disable all camera's in the hospital. And used Deus to manipulate the surrounding traffic cameras by making sure that his coming in with an ambulance was in the blindsight of all the cameras.

After entering the ambulance, Marcus asked James to drive them toward their hidden base and used an anesthetic on Dr. Octavius.

In the meantime, Marcus tempered with the metal harness that tied the arms to Doc and found the power source to disable the arms.

After a silent ride through the suburbs of New York, Marcus finally reached the hidden base with James and Otto.

And after reaching the base, Marcus pressed a few buttons on his phone and the ground in front of the abandoned house went down, revealing a sloped passage to the underground base.

James drove into the passage and parked the ambulance.

"Marcus, y'know kidnapping is pretty illegal right?"

James had a sly smile on his face while saying that.

Marcus on the other hand not wanting to feed into his uncle's antics just said, "Carry him in, will you? I am exhausted by using my powers for so long."

Seeing that his tease didn't have any reactions from Marcus, James gave up and just carried the Doc and his heavy metallic arms by himself.

Marcus opened the door of his lab and directed James to put the Doc, face first on a bed.

Marcus then administered another drug to wake him up from his unconsciousness.

After the drug was injected, Dr. Octavius slowly woke up from his unconscious state, still feeling a little groggy.

"Hello, Dr. Octavius, How are you feeling?"

Hearing that, Dr. Octavius tried to make out the blurry figure of the person standing in front of him. Slowly regaining his senses, Octavius saw the figure in front of him.

And the first thing he realized was that the man was wearing a Nurse's garb but he wasn't actually in a hospital, judging from the surroundings. After hearing the questions, he asked a few of his own.

"Who are you? And where am I?"

"Oh, I think you can't identify me because of the mask."

Marcus removed the mask he was wearing and showed his face to Dr. Octavius.

Seeing the familiar face Dr. Octavius identified him from his memory but still felt a little puzzled and hesitantly asked.

"Doctor…Marcus?!"