I sat at the table, trying to gather my thoughts, watching silent Aunt May bustle around the kitchen. My shoulder still hurt terribly where the teenage criminal had struck me, and my jaw ached with every small movement. At least the bruises on my face had faded significantly after two days of rest.
During these two days, I had more or less returned to normal, psychologically and physically.
This was largely helped by the fact that I had read the story of my past world. Who would have thought? That hedonistic bastard Luo Ji turned out to be the one who could protect humanity from the threat of total annihilation. The Wallfacer Project had seemed like nonsense to me from the start, but we all make mistakes sometimes. I want to believe that somewhere out there, my home Earth still exists. That is entirely reasonable, given that, except for some details, the book describes the history of the conflict with Trisolaris quite accurately.
The biggest difference between the book and reality was the gender ratio. Almost all the characters in it were women. At first, I chalked this up to the author being a woman herself. But then, putting the facts together...
How in the world had I managed not to notice this all this time? This crazy world was dominated by women. I had seen several men on the street while Bobbi was driving me home, but only a few. I searched for an explanation for this phenomenon on the global network, but to no avail. The natives saw nothing strange about it. According to local scientists, the higher the level of development of a species, the fewer males are required for its survival. The regulation of male numbers is part of the natural homeostasis of the population. Radical feminists would be thrilled. This universe fully corresponds to their ideals, even those they themselves were unaware of. Currently, in developed countries, there are at least ten women for every man. And these men serve merely as appendages to the women. Quite a well established appendage, I must say. Most of these bastards don't even work anywhere, living off their wives' support. It's surprising that, given such realities, the institution of marriage developed and still hasn't fallen apart.
Obviously, thinking that since all the turmoil of the past few days hadn't driven me insane, my subconscious decided there was nothing left to fear and fed me more memories. This time, memories from the life of the other Peter Parker. Yes, now I was absolutely certain. I and the one whose body I now inhabited were two completely different people.
From now on, I would call the one who lived here before me Peter. That would be easier. At least I wouldn't feel like a madman.
Peter was an extremely withdrawn person. He practically never spoke to anyone unless absolutely necessary. And even if someone managed to get Peter talking, it could hardly be called a dialogue. In fact, he talked to himself, even when addressing another person. He left it to those around him to translate and interpret as best they could, to glean as much meaning as the listener was capable of absorbing.
To be fair, other people were as much a mystery to Peter as he was to them. Peter had difficulty perceiving the emotions and motivations of these «objects.» In short, he didn't know how to communicate with people, and he had no desire to learn. He was extremely lazy and apathetic. He was too lazy to adapt his thoughts for other people. He never brought even his own ideas to life. If something could engage his mind for a short time, that was already an event, as happened with Dr. Stans's article. That theory captivated Peter for a whole month. In the end, he even overcame his laziness and wrote Stans an email, pointing out a few flaws in the theory and offering a couple of his own ideas. But he was too lazy to fully explain his thought process in the email, believing that since the «object» was the author of the article that interested him, she would figure everything out on her own. Obviously, she didn't.
Aunt May, who had come this morning, informed me that my absences had caused concern among the teachers and reminded me that finishing school was my duty. Aunt May didn't live with me in this house. She only brought groceries, sometimes helped with cooking and cleaning, paid the bills, and left some pocket money. I understood. It was hard to live with a person like Peter. It was good that she had never turned to specialists. After all, Peter's condition should have resembled high functioning autism from the outside, even if it wasn't. A specialist's decision could have ruined Peter's, and therefore my, entire future life.
When Aunt May started to leave, I asked to go with her. I said I wanted to talk to Uncle. She was surprised but didn't object. I wondered what surprised her more, my desire or the fact that I was speaking in simple, understandable language.
I vaguely remembered that besides Aunt May, Ben had several other wives, but they didn't all live together. That was normal practice. Few people were interested in or able to provide shared housing for a huge family of six or more adults and dozens of children, but it varied from case to case. Many women valued their independence. Even when marrying a man, they didn't want to be with him all the time. Ha, I could understand them. The native husbands were terrifying.
Aunt May drove a pickup truck, which we took to Uncle Ben's house. It was a three room apartment where he lived with two wives, one of whom was Aunt May. His three other wives lived nearby but were not frequent guests in this apartment, nor were their children.
I suspected that Ben from this world would be a completely different person, but I still wasn't prepared for what I saw. Aunt May's husband suffered from third degree obesity, as well as the whole accompanying bouquet of related diseases, which was quite lush given the man's age. Add to that a quarrelsome, grouchy personality. With such a character, he would have made an excellent domestic tyrant, if only he weren't so infirm.
He wasn't happy to see me. I am not a great expert in psychology, in fact a complete zero, I have never been interested in that science. But even I could see some superficial reasons for his dislike of me.
Besides the fact that I had torn Ben away from watching some idiotic TV show, in his eyes I was a living reminder of wasted, I suspect in vain, youth and health. Of what he could never return to. It was a mistake to come here. I realized I had nothing to say to this man, but to somehow justify my visit, I tried to ask about my parents, ignoring Ben's openly hostile gaze.
«Why would I know anything about your parents, kid?» Ben was so surprised he even lost some of his anger. «He was May's brother, not mine. I only saw him a couple of times in my life.»
I barely kept my composure. This was unexpected, but inside I felt relief that this man was not my blood relative. I hoped my father wasn't like that.
«Just, you know, Aunt May has...» I tried to come up with some reason. «Well, a woman's perspective. You are the only man who knew my father that I can talk to...»
God, what nonsense.
«I already said I didn't know him,» Ben's irritation returned. Having lost interest in the conversation, he went back to watching television.
«Peter,» I heard Aunt May's voice behind me. «You could talk to Dr. Connors. She worked a lot with Richard, and her husband was your father's friend.»
«Oh, thank you, Aunt May.» You just saved me from this awkward situation. «Do you have their contact information?»
«I'm afraid not,» the woman thought for a moment. «But you can find her phone number on the Empire State University website.»
I would definitely find it. After all, I still needed to keep my promise to Bobbi and monitor Stans's condition. Her research looked very similar to the work of another Dr. Connors from my past.
«No, just look at what she's doing.» Uncle Ben's excited shout reached us.
Glancing at her husband, May pursed her lips with displeasure but said nothing. I had never liked TV shows, but in my real memories, Aunt and Uncle loved spending an evening watching something like «America's Got Talent.» Ben was apparently watching something similar. On the screen, a gymnast in a tight white pink suit was performing some gymnastic tricks.
«Just look at this, ladies and gentlemen,» the announcer said enthusiastically. «This girl will give Mrs. Fantastic a run for her money.»
«Ben is a fan of this Spider Woman,» Aunt May shared with me.
Spider Woman. What a ridiculous nickname.
Wait. Spider Woman?
«What did you say?» I jumped.
«What?» May was surprised. «Haven't you heard of her? Our city's television hero,» the woman chuckled. «Like a real superhero, only on TV.»
And her costume really did resemble mine. But what the hell. Where did another, well, another Spider Woman come from in this world? There had to be a limit to this madness.
«Aunt May, do you know if my class went on a field trip while I wasn't attending classes?» I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
«The teacher mentioned something like that to me. Yes, definitely, they talked about some field trip about a week or two ago,» May said thoughtfully, and then immediately added, «and this girl is really impressive. She's making money with her ability. There's no other way these days. In today's world, without money, you can't find a good husband.» She looked at Ben with long standing disappointment.
Of course. I hadn't been kidnapped right away. Having realized my past, I had fallen into a depression. That depression caused subsequent amnesia. I forgot my past as Spider Man and lived as this world's Peter Parker. Apparently, that was when I had missed that field trip.
I decided to walk back. My head was empty, so I just looked at the natives in the light of the setting sun and the numerous signs. This world was strange. No, if with women everything was clear, they combined the concepts of the strong and fair sex here, hence the great variety of types, then with the men...
This rare beast not only stood out for its abundance of features. Out of the dozen boys my age I encountered, four were overweight, three looked overly feminine but within heterosexual norms, one was definitely gay, and only one looked normal. There was another one, but I tried to forget that miracle in a skirt as soon as I saw it. I was only glad that other passersby also looked at him, some with hostility, some simply mockingly.
Was I going to become one of these now? I caught another appraising glance from a girl walking toward me. Damn. What would I do if my powers had gone to someone else? To someone who used them only for personal gain? What if she just entertained the public on TV shows? Who would prevent the explosion of the star reactor? Who would prevent the city from being infected with the Lizard's vaccine? Who would stop Electro? And if this greedy girl merged with Venom, it would be a disaster. Damn. Besides, I was used to a healthy, strong body. I didn't want to be a weakling with terrible eyesight for the rest of my life.
«Look,» a woman in front of me shouted, reaching for her phone to film a girl in a tight suit running across the rooftops.
Speak of the devil. Did you have to run right here, right in front of me? What the hell are you doing running through the streets anyway? You are not catching criminals.
The girl, meanwhile, jumped off the roof of a building right onto the roadway. Grabbing a lamppost with her hand in mid air, she beautifully executed an acceleration maneuver using centrifugal force and flew to the other side of the street. She was showing off on purpose. She wasn't even a hero yet, but she was already trying to attract people's attention.
«I know her,» an excited female voice nearby. «I know her. That's Spider Woman from TV.»
Less enthusiasm, madam. She doesn't even have webbing. And why has she become so popular so quickly? How long has it been since the field trip? A week? Two?
The acrobat slipped out of our sight, but people kept looking after her for a while.
«Ah, she's cool,» a girl of about thirteen next to me said. «I wish I could be like her.»
Yeah, I wished that too. Because I, Peter Parker, am the real Spider Man.
To hell with all of it.
Returning home in a state of distress, I wanted to go straight to bed, but sleep wouldn't come. So, to kill time, I decided to work. While uploading data copied from Stans's laboratory computer, I thought about my next steps.
Perhaps I should contact the local version of Connors as soon as possible. Stans's formula was close to what Kurt had been working on. It had the same base, but Stans hadn't tried to implant reptile genes with it. Reading Stans's notes, I got the impression that the scientist herself didn't fully understand what she was dealing with. She seemed to be trying to adapt the formula for interaction with the emitter. It was unlikely that this formula was her own development. More likely, she was trying to replicate someone else's work. It was possible that Stans's and Connors's formulas had a common origin.
Another half hour of thinking, and I found myself sketching out web shooter designs.
Are you kidding me?