Marvel's Shendu: Dominating the Multiverse

Chapter 171 Antisocial Personality?

Parker stood in the hallway, his back against the wall. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

Parker took it out and looked; it wasn't the number. It was MJ asking why he hadn't gone to school today. He replied that he wasn't feeling well and had taken the day off.

He put his phone away, then took it out again, scrolling to the number he hadn't saved. The last message was still, "You know what this means."

Parker typed a line, deleted it, typed it again, deleted it again. Finally, he sent it.

"He's going to take the chip back."

The reply came very quickly, abnormally quickly. One word.

"oh."

Parker stared at the word for five seconds.

The second message arrived. "This is no longer your responsibility."

Article Three. "Going Home."

Parker put his phone in his pocket. He stood in the hallway for another ten minutes, staring at the ICU door. The light shone through the square glass window, and Octavius's bed was at the far end; from this angle, all he could see was the monitor screen and a section of motionless leg under the sheet.

Parker left the hospital.

That evening, records from the Presbyterian Hospital's ICU showed that Otto Octavius ​​experienced an abnormal spike in brainwaves at 1:14 AM. The spike lasted seven seconds and was three times the normal range. He was awake when the on-duty nurse checked on him.

"It's nothing," he said. "I had a dream."

After the nurse left, Octavius ​​lay in the darkness for a long time. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling were off, leaving only the backlight of the monitor and a sliver of light seeping in from the corridor.

He closed his eyes. A voice rang in his head, not his own. To be precise, it was his own, but not entirely. The voice had been there since the chip was implanted three months ago, initially faint, like the background noise of an electric current. It had grown clearer over time. It had been quiet for several hours after the robotic arm was removed, and now it was back.

No robotic arm is needed. The chip is still there.

The voice said: Give me control.

Octavius ​​opened his eyes.

He thought of the reactor. He thought of the passive safety mechanism Parker had mentioned. He thought of the person who appeared in the lab and used some unknown means to turn his arm into liquid metal. He thought of the emptiness in his lower body.

Thirty years of physics training taught him that if the main controller of a system fails, it should switch to a backup system.

It is standard procedure.

He was the main controller. He was damaged.

The voice repeated: Give me control.

This time Octavius ​​did not refuse.

His brainwaves peaked for the second time at 2:31 AM. This peak lasted for 23 seconds. By the time it subsided, all the numbers on the monitor had returned to normal: heart rate 72, blood oxygen 98, and respiratory rate 14 breaths per minute.

He is more stable than at any time since he was admitted to the hospital.

Octavis was discharged from the hospital three days later.

He handled the discharge procedures himself: signing the papers, collecting his medication, and confirming the follow-up appointment with the nurse. Everything went smoothly. He walked out of the hospital wearing the same plaid shirt he wore upon admission, stood by the roadside for a few seconds, and then hailed a taxi.

Parker watched him get into the car from across the street.

The car drove away. Parker took out his phone, hesitated for a moment, and didn't send a message.

Nothing happened for the next week.

Octavius ​​returned to his apartment in Queens, taking his medication and attending physical therapy sessions as scheduled. He emailed the school.

He submitted a sick leave application, worded politely, and even attached a scanned copy of his complete medical certificate. His colleague replied, "Take care," and he responded with a "thank you."

Parker breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps that person was right; the residual effects of the chip would fade, and Octavius ​​would return to his original self.

On the eighth day, Parker passed by Octavius's house and took a quick look.

The potted plants on the balcony died. Not from wilting, but from being uprooted and planted upside down in the soil. The stems were facing down, the roots up, arranged neatly, six pots in total, evenly spaced.

Parker squatted on the roof of the building across the street for twenty minutes.

Octavius ​​was making coffee inside. His back was visible through the window; his movements were normal, his rhythm normal. The coffee was ready, he picked up the cup, took a sip, opened a journal, and sat down on the sofa to read.

A normal person.

Parker glanced at the balcony. The six upside-down plants stood motionless in the wind, their roots dried out and as hard as plastic.

He sent a message to that number.

"The plants on his balcony are not right."

The reply came three minutes later.

"I know."

"Are you still spying on him?"

"Not surveillance. Observation."

Parker thought for a moment about how to reply. His finger hovered over the screen for a few seconds.

"What's wrong with him?"

This time, he waited a long time, so long that Parker thought the other party wouldn't reply.

"The chip isn't fading away; it's adapting to its host."

Parker's stomach sank down a bit.

"Didn't you say—"

"I'm talking about the neural interface effects of the robotic arm fading. The chip is another matter. That thing is embedded in his brainstem, it's already integrated with the neural tissue. I can use the Reality Stone to change the state of matter, but I can't change an information structure that has already merged with the brain. I've also tried the Mind Stone, but it can't detect anything unusual because the signals output by the chip are completely consistent with his own brainwaves in terms of pattern. It has learned to disguise itself."

Parker stared at the message on the screen for a long time.

"So you can't do anything about it?"

"I didn't say there was no way..."

"So what do you plan to do?"

The conversation ended there. Parker waited ten minutes, but there was no further news.

The twelfth day.

Octavius ​​went to the supermarket and bought a week's worth of groceries. When he went to pay, the cashier gave him the wrong change, giving him twenty dollars too much. Octavius ​​put the twenty dollars back on the counter and said, "Too much," and the cashier apologized.

When he was leaving the supermarket, a stray dog ​​was blocking his car in the parking lot.

Octavius ​​put the shopping bags in the trunk, closed the lid, and went around to the driver's seat, where the dog was still lying next to the front wheel.

He started the car.

There was no honking, no waiting, no shooing. Just shifting into gear and stepping on the gas.

A woman nearby screamed. The dog ran away; luckily, it wasn't run over.

Octavius's car drove out of the parking lot, turned, and merged into traffic. He was on a speed limit of thirty miles per hour, used his turn signal, and yielded to pedestrians. His driving was impeccably orderly.

No one called the police. It was just a stray dog; it wasn't run over, so it wasn't a big deal.

But the parking lot's security cameras captured the moment Octavius ​​started the car. His expression, or rather, his lack of expression. It wasn't that he was distracted, that he didn't see it, or that he misjudged. He saw the dog. His gaze swept precisely ahead before starting the car, paused for a fraction of a second, and then executed the "move forward" action.

In that fraction of a second of pause, the reactions a normal person would make—hesitation, detour, waiting—were skipped in Octavius's decision-making chain.

Day 15.

Octavius ​​underwent a follow-up examination. The spinal joint healed well, and nerve conduction velocity returned to 68% of normal. The attending physician said the recovery was faster than expected and recommended continuing physical therapy.

Octavius ​​nodded, cooperating fully.