Sam ran to the elevator and pressed the button, but Fields was right on
his heels.
“Wait,” Fields said as she came up to him.
“I’m looking at things here.”
“You’re going to get into more trouble with Osborn.”
“I know,” Sam responded as the elevator door opened.
Fields followed Sam into the elevator. “You’ve poked the hornet’s nest.
You know that, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Which floor?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked as the doors closed.
“You want to get away from Osborn don’t you?”
“Didn’t he send you after me?”
“He did,” Fields confirmed. “But I want you to get away. So which
floor?”
“I don’t trust you,” Sam said. “The roof.”
“It doesn’t go to the roof,” Fields said “And we’re already on the top
floor. We’ll go down to the floor just below us and then use the stairs.”
“Different idea. Find me a phone.”
“Calling home?”
Sandi Griffin had slept in, as the past week had been rather hectic. She
was making a late breakfast when the phone rang. She quickly picked it up.
“Hello, Sandi Griffin here.”
“It’s Sam. I need help! I crept into that new Oscorp building.”
“What!” Sandi said in concern. “You, like, shouldn’t have done that.”
Sam sighed. “I realise that now. So I may need your help, with
or without Daria.”
“Trying to find her would take time. I’ll get there quickly. Locate you
when I get there.”
Fields had listened in. “So, your sister and this Daria are two of the
vigilantes.”
“No comment.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“I’m not saying anything more,” Sam said. “We’ll go to the roof now and
wait for Sandi.”
“Well, I won’t. I’ll be trying to keep Osborn busy.”
Sandi called the Morgendorffers, but there was no answer. ‘Of course
not,’ she thought. Helen was probably working overtime, Daria was either being
Dafoanairi or at the Historia and Quinn was probably either shopping or at the
Historia as well. She looked at the map of Lawndale on her wall. The Historia
was in a completely different direction to the new Oscorp building. “Not enough
time,” she murmured as she tied her hair back and grabbed her mask.
At the Historia, Donna received a call.
“I’m at the Historia, with Brittany,” she said
“As in Brittany Taylor? You see her at school,” her cousin
Daniela Bolton said.
“Yes, but we organized this,” Donna said.
“Fine!” Daniela said, “But can you pick me up?”
“You want me to bring you here?”
“I’d like to see the Historia.”
“Sure. I’ll just let Brittany know.”
Donna flipped her cell phone shut. “Ugh. She’s an only child and
therefore entitled.”
“Who’s that?” Brittany asked.
“My cousin, Daniela. I might have promised to show her the Historia at
some point.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, but I have to go and get her,” Donna said as apology.
“That’s alright,” Brittany said. “We can spend more time here tomorrow.”
“But what are you going to do.”
“Some errands.”
‘Errands,’ Donna thought as she exited the Historia into the rear car
park. There was something about the way Brittany said that. She shook her head
and instead thought of her spoiled cousin.
Brittany headed up to the roof before looking in the direction of the
new Oscorp building. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ she thought.
SpiderGirl approached the building. ‘But where will Sam be?’ she
wondered.
The Enigma approached the Oscorp building. ‘Should I locate Sam now or
wait until I’m on the roof?’ She decided to wait until she was on the roof.
Arriving the roof, she saw Sam with Fields, near the door. “What sort of
trouble have you got yourself into?” she asked.
Sam remained silent.
“I’m waiting,” the Enigma prompted.
“I wanted to investigate,” Sam responded.
“Still, you drew Osborn’s attention to yourself.”
SpiderGirl swung up to the roof, but saw that the Enigma was there with
Sam. “Great! But what about Alchemax?” She wondered why Andrea’s sources seemed
to indicate that that the infiltration would occur in broad daylight. She
stayed at the edge, out of the Enigma’s line of sight.
At the same time, an Alchemax team approached the building through a
disused utility tunnel, one of many that lay beneath various parts of Lawndale.
The leader paused as he came to the door to the building’s basement. The door
didn’t look unused. It conformed his suspicions that Oscorp was using the
tunnels. “It’s been used recently,” he said. He then stepped aside to let one
of the other team members open it. But he watched to see whether there would be
a CCTV camera on the other side.
“Still, you drew Osborn’s attention to yourself,” his disguised sister
said.
Sam wasn’t sure what to say to that. Other than, “You’re not going to
tell…”
“I might,” his sister said.
“Right…” Sam realized. He was going to get in more trouble.
“But for now, I have to deal with what may be happening here.”
“I can’t stay with him,” Fields said. “Osborn will know I’ve been
obfuscating.”
“I knew you would say something like that. But I can’t use my perception
powers constantly. It would be exhausting,” the Enigma said.
“Sam will have to stay here, while you go down and look.”
‘Fields is still threading a fine line,’ SpiderGirl considered. She
swung down. The situation with the Enigma and Sam seemed under control. She was
more concerned about what Alchemax was doing.
Just above the ground level she took out her phone and saw that Ninja
Talon had arrived nearby.
“A complication?” Ninja Talon asked.
“Yes. Sam Griffin is present for some reason and he was up on the roof
with Fields and the Enigma,” SpiderGirl answered.
“That’s not good. But why would the Enigma be there with Sam?”
“No idea.”
“There might be a connection?” Ninja Talon suggested.
“Maybe, but we have to focus on Alchemax for now.”
Ninja Talon nodded.
Osborn was working on something as he waited for Fields to return from
escorting Sam out. Then the extension in the office rang. “Osborn here. This
better be important.”
“Sir, Alchemax agents have entered the basement. A team is on their
way.”
“That’s not all, is it?”
“SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon have been sighted nearby.”
“They probably have been tipped off about Alchemax.”
“I have been up here long enough,” Fields said.
“I’ll go down with you,” the Enigma said.
“Not a good idea.”
“We’ll get out on separate floors of course.”
Fields sighed. “Fine!”
SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon entered the building through a side door on
the northern side. “They’re already aware that there are intruders,” SpiderGirl
said.
Ninja Talon nodded.
SpiderGirl swung up to the ceiling and crawled along to the door before
webbing it open. She then looked out in the corridor. “No one,” she whispered.
The Enigma got out of the elevator on the 5th floor. “This is
as far as I’m, like, going. I can sense Osborn’s agitation.”
“You can read emotions?” Fields asked.
“If they’re particularly strong,” the Enigma answered as she pressed the
‘door close’ button.
“You’re not going to say more, are you?”
“Not now.”
The door closed, with Fields heading down further. The Enigma remembered
a few times when Stacy’s panic attacks were overwhelming to her. That had
taught her how to block other’s strong emotions more than her mother’s teaching
had.
She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about Stacy, although she
had been doing a lot better before the Fashion Club ended.
“There you are!” Osborn said to Fields as she entered the office.
“Sam is not inside,” she said.
“Good, because an Alchemax team is. They’re somewhere in the basement.
SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon are also present on the lower levels.”
“You want me to turn them against each other?”
“Continue what you were doing before I called you because of Sam,”
Osborn said. “I’ll handle the vigilantes.”
The Enigma focused. SpiderGirl was a few floors down. ‘But that’s not
all. We can’t really confront each other in the middle of an Oscorp building,’
she thought. ‘But we can help each other as happened when Oscorp tried to steal
from Alchemax.’
The Spider Talon team came to a corner and SpiderGirl carefully looked
around it. She quickly leaned back. “They’re here.”
“How many?” Ninja Talon asked quietly.
“Five.”
“We can handle that.”
“I knew you would say that,” SpiderGirl said before swinging up onto the
ceiling.
The leader of the Alchemax team knew something was off before he found
himself immobilized by some kind of web. “SpiderGirl!” he called out.
“That’s me!” SpiderGirl said from the ceiling.
He looked and saw Ninja Talon sparring with one of his team while
SpiderGirl tried to web up the rest. He tried to grab the fluid his immediate
boss had given him.
“Oh! You’re not going to get out quickly,” SpiderGirl said.
“Oscorp is working on something.”
“Duh! Of course they are.”
“Something worse than Groundhog Day,” the team leader said.
“I don’t doubt that, but you’re trespassing.”
“So are you. Are you sure you want to be on their side?”
“I’m not on their side,” SpiderGirl objected. “I don’t want Lawndale to
be a battleground between two corporations!”
