“Spider, we’ve got a reckless driver on the road. She’s driving like Death himself is chasing her.”
Our break was over, so we got back to work.
We’d already run into a couple of thugs, but nothing particularly dangerous.
Just some street punks looking to make a quick profit at the expense of passersby.
I had to admit, I’d underestimated my own abilities a little.
Being able to instantly appear behind an opponent made fighting considerably easier.
Add the web-shooters and tasers to the mix, and I was practically unbeatable.
As long as my reflexes were fast enough, I could dodge attacks without much trouble, which made me almost untouchable.
At least against ordinary thugs without firearms.
If I ran into someone strong and heavily armored, like Rhino, I’d be as helpless as a kitten.
That was a problem I’d have to solve sooner or later.
A fire, a bunch of beaten-up thugs, and now some reckless driver.
Not the worst start to a superhero career.
“I see her. I’ll try to intercept.”
Our latest patient was a rather strange case.
Who drove recklessly in a company vehicle?
I couldn’t make out the name of the company because the van kept swerving all over the road, crossing into oncoming traffic before veering back into its lane.
Thankfully, this particular road wasn’t very busy, so there hadn’t been an accident yet.
But the fact that she was heading straight toward a tall embankment without making any attempt to turn was getting seriously dangerous.
Stopping a vehicle traveling at full speed might sound impossible, but not when Spider-Girl was on your team.
Her male counterpart had stopped a train before.
Compared to that, this was just a van.
Penny latched onto the back of the vehicle with her web-shooters and dug her feet into the ground.
At first, the van dragged her along the asphalt, but she eventually managed to get a firm footing and bring it to a stop.
That was my cue.
As soon as the van stopped, I finally had a clear view of the cabin and teleported into the passenger seat.
I grabbed the handbrake and brought the vehicle to a complete stop.
The sudden movement shook us pretty badly, but thankfully, nobody was hurt.
We made it just in time, too.
A few more seconds and the van would have smashed through the embankment railing and gone looking for Nemo.
“Well, sweetheart, looks like we’ve arrived,” I said to the driver.
“Red eyes… red eyes…” the woman mumbled, completely ignoring me.
She didn’t even seem to realize that the vehicle had stopped.
“Red eyes? Did you smoke too much weed?”
But after getting a better look at her, I realized my joke was completely inappropriate.
She wasn’t drunk or high.
She was absolutely terrified.
“What happened here?” Penny asked, leaning into the cabin through the window beside the driver’s seat.
“Hell if I know. She doesn’t seem to be herself.”
I turned the woman’s face toward me and gently patted her cheeks.
“Ma’am, please calm down. Nothing is going to hurt you. You’re safe.”
“Huh? W-who are you?”
Apparently, it worked.
At the very least, she snapped out of her trance and finally paid attention to us.
“We’re heroes,” I said, keeping my voice as calm and reassuring as possible.
“I’m Raven, and she’s Spider-Girl.”
“Hi!” Penny waved at her with exaggerated friendliness.
“What’s your name?” I continued.
“R-Roxy. My name is Roxy.”
“Roxy,” I repeated, making sure I had her name right.
“We want to help you. Tell us what happened.”
I’m hardly a psychologist.
I’ve never been particularly good at calming people down.
Penny’s communication skills were even worse than mine, but somehow, it seemed to work.
“We were working in the sewers. There was a blockage that needed to be cleared. We found the right place and started working, just like usual.”
“Then we heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps. I turned around to see who was walking around down there and…”
She swallowed hard.
“I couldn’t make out its shape. I only remember the eyes. They were red, and they were glowing in the darkness.”
“My partner and I panicked and ran. I got out first, and Megan was right behind me, but she didn’t make it. Something grabbed her.”
“I only saw its paw when it reached the light. It was green and covered in scales. The claws were as long as knives.”
“I tried to hold on to her, but it was useless. It didn’t even seem to notice me. It just dragged her away.”
“After that, I jumped into the van… and ended up here.”
Hmm.
Red eyes didn’t tell me much, but a clawed, scaly hand and a sewer certainly gave me a few ideas.
Of course, this was Marvel.
The local fauna was so ridiculously diverse that I couldn’t possibly remember every creature that existed here, so there was no guarantee this was actually the Lizard.
Still, it was worth treating that as our first working theory.
Checking on Connors wouldn’t cost us anything.
If she was fine, we could continue looking elsewhere.
“Can you show us where it happened?” Penny asked.
“We could try to find your partner.”
“I’m not going back there!” Roxy cried in panic.
After calming down a little, however, she pointed us in the right direction.
“Go straight that way. I didn’t close the manhole, I was in too much of a hurry, so you can’t miss it.”
The distant sound of police sirens reached us.
Apparently, someone who had witnessed Miss Roxy’s little joyride had finally called the police.
There was nothing left for us to do with her.
The van was stopped, we’d gotten the information we needed, and the police would clearly be better equipped to deal with her mental state than we were.
“Think we’ll find anything?” I asked Parker after teleporting us onto the nearest rooftop.
“I don’t know.” Penny shrugged.
“Honestly, I’m not even completely sure she wasn’t hallucinating. But if someone really did disappear, we should at least try to find them.”
And that settled it.
Finding the entrance to the sewers wasn’t particularly difficult.
Unfortunately, our search didn’t lead anywhere.
We didn’t give up immediately, of course.
We spent about an hour wandering through the sewers and enjoying the wonderful assortment of local smells.
Still, we found nothing.
“What do you think?” Parker asked dejectedly.
“Let’s call it a night,” I answered with a sigh.
“We’re not going to accomplish anything by wandering around this maze.”
I didn’t like abandoning someone who might be in trouble, but there really wasn’t anything else we could do.
At least we hadn’t found any blood.
That meant the kidnapped woman was probably still alive.
Why would the Lizard even want a human?
Assuming this really was Connors, of course.
If I remembered correctly, her goal was supposed to be transforming everyone into creatures like herself.
Had she taken the woman for experiments?
And wasn’t the Lizard serum supposed to appear only after Connors met Parker?
Ugh.
What a headache.
Nothing but questions and mysteries, and not a single answer in sight.
“If some scaly freak has shown up in the city and started kidnapping people, it won’t stay hidden for long. We’ll keep our eyes open and we’ll catch it.”
Seeing that Penny was getting even more upset, I tried to reassure her.
“All right,” Penny reluctantly agreed.
She clearly didn’t like it, but she understood that I was right.
There was nothing we could do at the moment.
We headed home.
I’d already said goodbye to my girlfriend, but Connors still wouldn’t leave my mind.
Sometimes, knowing the future, even a future that might never happen, was more trouble than it was worth.
How exactly was I supposed to explain to Penny that we needed to pay a visit to a respected scientist and find out whether she’d mutated into a giant reptile?
I’d known where Cornelia Connors worked ever since I’d searched for information about her online.
Getting to the university wasn’t a problem, especially with my abilities.
It was nighttime now, so there probably wasn’t anyone there except the security guards working the night shift.
If Connors hadn’t transformed, she should be at home.
But if she had injected herself with the serum, she would have left evidence behind.
Giant reptiles weren’t exactly famous for being good at cleaning up their tracks.
Gwen
When she returned to the laboratory, Gwen collapsed into the nearest chair, completely exhausted.
An entire day of searching had yielded nothing.
At least the security guards knew her and let her inside without any trouble, even at such a late hour.
Why had Dr. Connors run away in the first place?
Wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to stay in the laboratory, where all the necessary ingredients and equipment for creating an antidote were available?
She hadn’t been home either.
Gwen knew her supervisor well enough to spend the entire day checking all the places where she might have hidden.
She’d also searched various abandoned houses and warehouses, although that had been more an act of panic and desperation than anything else.
Finding someone in a city as enormous as New York by simply wandering around at random was impossible.
“Um… good evening?”
A voice came from behind her.
Gwen jumped in surprise and spun around in her chair.
“Who are you?” she asked cautiously.
Although she already had a pretty good idea.
Of course, his superhero name hadn’t been announced to the public yet, but there was no way she could fail to recognize the person whose team she’d recently been considering joining.
“I’m Raven,” the young man introduced himself, raising his hands in a calming gesture.
“Sorry for startling you. I have a couple of questions for Dr. Connors. Can I see her?”
“She isn’t here… She went home,” Gwen lied unconvincingly.
She knew he was a hero, of course, but she couldn’t be sure how he would react if he learned about Cornelia’s mutation.
“So she’s at home.”
Raven clearly didn’t believe her.
His gaze settled on the mice in the cages, making her heart stop.
She’d removed the one she’d killed, but she simply hadn’t had the patience to deal with these.
She’d wanted to leave as quickly as possible and continue searching for Connors.
Of course, he also noticed the state of the laboratory and the claw marks on the walls.
“Listen, I don’t know what you think is going on, but I’m just trying to help. Someone has disappeared. A witness claims she saw a clawed hand covered in scales.”
“I’ve read Dr. Connors’ research papers, and I know about the work she was doing. I thought she might be able to give me some answers.”
A kidnapping?
Dr. Connors?
What nonsense.
She couldn’t have done something like that.
Why would she?
Yet a treacherous thought crept into Gwen’s mind.
What if the mutation hadn’t only changed Connors physically?
What if it had affected her mind as well?
Reptiles were predators.
Could instincts carried over through the new genes have altered her personality?
Gwen hesitated.
It was one thing to protect her supervisor from a group of superheroes when she’d merely mutated.
But kidnapping people was something else entirely.
Raven seemed surprisingly understanding.
Maybe she could explain to him that Cornelia wasn’t doing any of this out of malice and that she needed treatment.
Having the help of one superhero, or even two, would certainly make things easier.
“Listen…”
She began to speak, but a sudden crash and several screams interrupted her.
They seemed to be coming from the security post.
“I think all my questions just answered themselves,” Raven sighed.