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***
When I got home, I called Peter and got a less than rosy picture of Dr Octavius' situation. The extent of the damage was a little more extensive than I had expected, and now the doctors were conducting a rather arduous series of operations to separate the fused exoskeleton and save Otto's motor functions. According to Parker, his wife has been told that it will take at least thirty hours of uninterrupted time on the operating table and after that he will have to spend at least six months to a year on the latest Roxon drugs. Let's just say that Octavius's wife wanted to appear collected, but in fact she was shocked at the news, which Parker was quick to tell me. After spending a couple of hours in further collecting information about Octavius' family I realised the sadness of Otto's situation.
Osborne had certainly made a substantial contribution to his development, but he could not pay for it in full. Part of the rights had small companies in number not reaching a dozen and about 8-10% of the total amount spent on the experiment Otto invested from his wallet. So let's say that the family that went to the bank can not afford such expenses, and their employers at the moment certainly not to the life of the creator of such an "unsuccessful" invention, almost sent to the other side of the city. Of course, no one will know the extent of the disaster that didn't happen, but the rich and influential people present there have been quite eager to sue Ozkorp. Ozborn had already quickly disassociated himself from Octavius and was in the process of breaking his contract with Otto, launching a large-scale campaign to smear the scientist with dirt and throwing all the dogs on him.
After dealing with Otto for a few days, I finally relaxed and decided to spend the rest of the day doing something relaxing. It didn't take me long to find something to occupy myself with, and only the laptop, which had been put aside, took its rightful place on my feet again. Opening the search engine, I decided to check how my clip, released a few days after the invasion, was doing. It featured my rendition of Born for this by The Score playing underneath a montage of Avengers battle sequences. The clip has already racked up over a billion views and it looks like it's not going to stop. The number of comments is approaching three hundred million. Watching it, I even wondered if I should release an album. The idea got into my head so much that I immediately opened up a playlist and started picking my tracks.
***
12 October 2012 New York
-Hello Dr Octavius. - Raine said hello as he entered the room with the waking scientist.
-Good afternoon, and you... I remembered it was you to whom I owe the life of my wife. Accept my sincere gratitude, if you ever need my help, please contact me at once. - Otto's face cleared up.
-I forgot to thank you then too, thank you. - The woman smiled, squeezing her husband's hand.
-You're welcome, I was just able to help you at that moment and did so. - Rain said calmly, standing up next to Otto.
-Ah, where are my manners, Ryan Pierce. - Rain introduced himself, shaking Octavius' weakened hand. -I see you don't want to have a long conversation right now, so I won't take up your time. - Pierce took out a dark business card and handed it to his wife. -I am a representative of Custody Corp and I would like to offer you a job with our company. We have learnt about your sad situation with Ozcorp and we are ready to offer you much more favourable conditions. - Said Rain under the incomprehensible look of the man and the surprised sigh of his wife who read the name of the business card.
-What are you talking about? What is the situation? - Otto asked in a slightly agitated voice, shifting his gaze from Pierce to his wife. Under his gaze she started to speak.
-I didn't want to worry you, you're still weak and couldn't do anything anyway. - Guiltily the woman began to walk round in circles.
-What happened? - Octavius said firmly, catching eye contact with his wife.
-Ozcorp refused to pay for your treatment and said in a loud voice that she was severing all ties with you and would never work with such a dangerous person again. They shifted most of the blame onto you and said that you demanded that they give you a demonstration without preliminary tests as soon as possible. - The woman blurted out in a single breath with increasing fury and almost went on a tirade of extremely unflattering words to describe Osborn at the end.
-I demanded an early demonstration! He's completely *****! I've spoken several times about the need for a pre-launch, but this ***** referred to the already too big budget and demanded an early screening. He wanted a show, and now it's my fault?! - Otto was furious, not at all restraining himself and not limiting his vocabulary.
-Stop, then how did you pay for my treatment? - After a couple of minutes, Octavius finally calmed down a bit and remembered the beginning of the "happy" news.
-When I was told the full amount, I was shocked, but after a few hours of calling everyone, a nurse came to me and told me that all your treatment had been paid for, and even the full amount had already been paid for the subsequent rehabilitation. I immediately wanted to know who had done it and was told that the payment had come from Custody Corp." said Otto's wife, giving Pierce an even more grateful look.
-We couldn't help such a talented luminary of science. - Raine replied under Otto's hard-to-read gaze.
-Why? - Asked Otto.
-Why what? - Pierce asked a little perplexed.
-Why do you need a scientist with my current reputation? I've never been an idiot and I realise that now I'm a dangerous element for the public, and for the companies I'm a man with a lot of legal problems and a minimal chance of finding sponsors for my projects. I don't really follow foreign companies, but I remember the names of those who have the most innovative and financially secure scientific departments perfectly well. And in the last few years I haven't heard of a rising star with your name on it. So I ask why are you trying so hard and wanting to hire someone with so many problems on the trailer? - Aiming his gaze into Rain's eyes Otto tried to see the answer there, to make sense of their actions. He had a reputation and a couple of good projects, but none of them were particularly profitable. His brainchild, which he had been developing since the beginning of his third decade, could have been a cash cow, but now he was not much different from other scientists and even on the contrary looked as bad as possible for the companies. What sense from all his discoveries if for society he is now a psycho, chasing fame, not thinking about the threat to the lives of others?
-You know, I could say now that we know the real state of affairs and that's why we're not afraid to hire you, but that would be a lie. - Sighing, Raine sat down on the sofa against the wall. -You're right, we're a mid-sized company that logically can't afford a scientist like you, and certainly can't offer anything more lucrative than a titan like Ozcorp, but in reality we have almost as much money and resources as the top mid-sized companies, and if we wanted to, we could get our hands on a project or two like yours. All our fearlessness and disregard for your problems is based on simple knowledge. The knowledge that in two months we can hire at least a dozen of the same "lepers" for society scientists and fill our pockets with a couple of billion dollars a year. I won't tell you any corporate secrets, at least not until you sign the contract, but I think in a couple of months you'll be able to see the truth of my statements. Tomorrow our man will bring you the contract and you can evaluate the prospects for yourself. But I think I've already stayed with you and I won't interfere with your recovery, as I know the doctor has prescribed frequent sleep for at least another fortnight. - Raine left the hospital thinking about how many things he would have to do before and after the discovery of Parker's creation, but after a little more walking he decided that everything would have to wait a little longer and at least a couple of evenings he would be able to allocate to a rather sluggish, but trying hard to seem alive personal life. Taking out his phone, he dialled Emma's number.
***
3 November 2012 New York
I'd been able to spend a couple of evenings with Emma over the past few weeks, and I'd noticed confirmation of a problem that had been brewing since the beginning of our relationship. Her attitude towards me couldn't cross the line and was constantly wavering on the line between infatuation and something more. The reason for this could have been several of my assumptions, but I count only two of them among the most obvious. My complete shutting out of her telepathic abilities, which, although sometimes pleasant for telepaths, also makes me look for a second bottom in all my words and think about our communication very carefully. Imagine that all your life you had a signboard hanging over almost every person, which lit up green when telling the truth and red when lying. And now you have met a person with whom you want to build a relationship, but there is no help from your most valuable ability on which you used to rely quite heavily, and you can not understand where in his words the truth and begin to doubt everything.
And here and feelings that want to grow into something more and fear for his unusualness, which is unknown how to perceive this man-mystery. The unknown is frightening, and the unknown multiplied by the fear of rejection by the one you have time to let into your life and most importantly heart, doubly. The dilemma facing her is understandable. On the one hand, it would be necessary to dot all the "i's" before deepening the relationship too much, but on the other hand, my memory can not be erased and it is an extremely strong risk. At the same time, if we cross the line now and wait for the late stage, when the chance of rejection will be minimal, we can minimise the risk, but in case of rejection it will hurt, very much. And given what I've learnt, the version of her childhood is the one I'm most familiar with and not so rosy. On the personal front, she had problems first with her feelings for her teacher, which were not reciprocated and ended with his dismissal at the instigation of Frost's father. Then her second attempt nearly ended in moderate trauma. The nice guy she went on a date with at the end due to rejection and control by her telepath friend attacked the girl. Then there was an attempt by the telepathic feminist lesbian neighbour to show Emma the inferiority of the male gender and other ordinary people to people like them, which ended with her getting into Emma's head and getting a natural rebuff that turned the telepathic girl's brain into mush. Further I do not know, but it is enough for a good set of phobias, and taking into account initially low self-esteem of the girl and rather early growing up with getting into the mentally unfavourable high society it is not clear how exactly to approach the girl to solve the problem.Having assessed all the chances and risks, I decided to simply destroy the main pivot to which all Emma's doubts were attached, namely, to reveal part of my powers to her. And given all the benefits of using the purest energy of space, I'm going to do it in a rather special way, so that this evening will be unforgettable in every sense.
I told Emma on the phone that it would be a memorable evening, and after getting some doubts and the phrase that she was hard to surprise, I went to pick her up. As I drove I felt like listening to some current music and I switched on the radio catching a single from an album I'd recently released. To be honest, when I went to the familiar and bought out for rare private use studio to record tracks everyone there was pretty sure that the single would be the Youtube-winning Born for this. But to everyone's bewilderment it turned out to be just one of them. And it would be all right, but people could bear it with dignity, hiding their opinion about my decision. But they couldn't bear the news that all other tracks in the album would be new. Their faces were quite funny at that moment.
My album called Second start included tracks like "Best Shot" by Mountains vs. Machines, "Heroes Rise" by WattWhite, "Knock Back" by Jaxson Gamble, "Play With Fire" by WAR*HALL, "Take It All" by Valley Of Wolves, "Death Grip" by Watt White, "Dynamite" by Jaxson Gamble and the single "Oh My My" by Summer Kennedy.
Turning the single up louder, I turned up the gas and felt that tonight was going to be a marvellous evening.
***
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