The Anachronous ch. 13

THIRTEEN


A deep and harrowing slumber overtook the dismembered cells of 2008 and 2009 Otto Octavius. Although they had no perception of time having gone by, when he awoke Doctor Octopus felt as though he had been in bed for weeks as he moved unsteadily. Knees like jelly, stiff in the joints, and a head still half asleep, he used his mechanical arms to help him to his feet, and he rubbed his head with a grunt and a protruding lower jaw

Otto was still on the floor and with eyes still shut he let out a heavy groan and curled into himself like a cat, but shifting around by either party on the slightly tilted pod floor quickly became a bad idea. It tipped further suddenly, and now quite awakened Doctor Octopus tried to use his arms to balance the pod. It was to no avail, and where they were falling to could be from Empire State Building for all Octavius knew or even the highest peak of Mt. Everest for that matter. Both Octavius’ cried out as the pod fell onto its side. It bumped and scraped and slid as though they were going blind down a water slide. Then came the splash, but there was no sound of water.

On top of each other in a tangle of arms, the pair of Octavius moaned.

As Doctor Octopus focused his eyes he glared upon 2008’s foot. With the help of his arms he removed his younger self roughly from off of the top of him, and he growled.

Although in all other respects Doctor Octopus could feel nothing but rage and frustration he felt satisfied anyway that he had been able to make the pod able to withstanding a bit of bouncing about even if it could not withstand the might of the future arms all that well.

A few moments of silence followed after the pair had reoriented themselves in the now sideways craft.

Finding his glasses which were miraculously unbroken, Otto put them back onto his face and read their location on the screen. He gasped.

“We’ve arrived at the—” he started, but Doctor Octopus only opened the hatch.

It proved difficult to widen it far, and snow piled in around them.

Ignoring the small cry of Otto, Doctor Octopus pushed it all back out with his arms before climbing out onto the snow on the side of this mountainous heap. The air was cold and dry, the sky gray and it seemed the snow was freshly fallen—at least the top layer. The snow was thick and deep, and they appeared to be in some sort of giant rock garden.

“We must be on a glacial ridge!” exclaimed Otto looking about him with near kitten-like curiosity despite himself as he adjusted his glasses and rubbed his cold hands together with a shiver. “The bulk of the raw materials which will eventually be used for the time pod must have been deposited here during this ice age! This would be spectacular if not for the circumstances!”

Doctor Octopus did not answer nor did he look back.

Returned from his momentary scientific elation, Otto lowered his head.

For a few moments again they stood uncommunicative, and then Otto lifted his head.

“What are we going to do?” He paused twiddling his fingers and then said in a very low tone that just barely reached an audible level over the sound of the wind beyond their shelter of cliffs, “I—I—I suppose I already know more than a man ought to about his future but…What happens to me?”

Doctor Octopus did not hear this last question nor its additives as he was still on the first. He did not care where he was, how far back in time they had gone, and he had not the faintest idea how to solve this problem. Glowering into a towering snow bank near at hand, he pressed on further into the maze of stone and snow.

He just wanted to think. He just had to think in peace, and what better place to think in peace than a prehistoric ice age as long as his past self would shut up. He trusted that it would not take long for him to get the message, though. Otto Octavius had never been one for idle chatter. Then there would be practically an eternity to think in silence about how to untangle this mess he was in before his future self would enter his own time line to destroy himself.

Unless, his future self could stop him from going back to this time period by going a few moments earlier than when they had all appeared at the infant’s crib, or perhaps just go back earlier still and kill his infant self. But what would matter more? Where he was now in this ice age before the name Octavius had ever been uttered by an ancient ancestor? Or where 2009 Otto Octavius was chronologically in the rest of his time line?

Doctor Octopus shook his head.

He was not dead yet, so he could not worry about such things.

Over the edge of a rise he could look down into a flat bottomed valley of nothing but untouched blinding snow rimmed in dagger-sharp and ragged rock. Perhaps it was a frozen lake or a place where one had dried up. All was dead it seemed on the ground; though he did at some point hear a bird scream overhead. He closed his eyes, allowing the chill in the air to take him. It was almost refreshing from how hot and angry he felt inside and how oppressively sweaty Schenectady had been when he left it.

He could hear the footsteps of his trudging younger self behind him, and he could almost hear his teeth chatter and he was shivering terribly.

Rolling his eyes he pulled his arms into the harness and closed his claws narrow so that he could remove his coat. Then with a claw and without looking back he dropped the coat onto the head of Otto. He did not want to get his younger self dying from exposure or anything. Perhaps prehistoric pre-ice age would be better if they were not trampled down by a dinosaur.

As Otto put on the coat he watched the arm which had given it to him withdraw and lean over its master as though to join him in his view of the scene below. Though, without his coat now even the heated Doctor Octopus had to leave the scene behind him to avoid the full force of the wind.

It would be better to think in the pod.

Or go someplace a little warmer.

He needed stimulus was really what.

If only he had some coffee.

“It’s the arms, isn’t it?”

The low, almost dark tone sounded very queer coming from pre-Octopus Otto Octavius, but as Doctor Octopus stiffened and turned suddenly towards Otto, he could only frown unimpressed by Otto’s severe eyes over his dourly set teeth.

“What?” hissed Doctor Octopus, the arms twitching with their host’s irritation.

He may have been unimpressed with his younger self’s demeanor. The severity and self-assurance, as silly as it looked on him anyway, gave way to his usual cowering nature under Doctor Octopus’ leer. He sunk into his coat and swallowed hard, and yet his voice had not wavered out entirely and the severity in his voice remained. It was a voice that carried enough strength to almost be taken seriously. The tone was not so much what caught Doctor Octopus’ attention either however had it not been for the words it carried.

“This situation is a paradox,” he continued.

“It’s time travel,” muttered Doctor Octopus. “No one has yet been able to explore the ramifications of it.”

Otto shook his head. “If you’re trying to protect me now then why isn’t it that in the future I have not, in my decision to keep myself from getting killed, been able to stop that … monster from becoming what he is to begin with.  It’s all Otto Octavius. I’m not three separate people. Unless …”

Doctor Octopus’ frowned deepened.

“It’s a paradox unless even with the knowledge of what is to come in my future I still allow this all to happen.”

Doctor Octopus snorted, but it was more of a warning growl than a brushing scoff.

He knew how much Otto had seen and observed. Easily he would have pieced facts together. Coward he always was but never a fool.

The poison of corroding machinery in one’s body after an event as that explosion which had no doubt damaged its protective casing in order to become one with its organic host …

In a hollow voice Otto uttered on as though a ghost, but then he was a ghost. A ghost of a time when Otto feared and cared too much and was destroyed for the weakness of a guilty conscience, which allowed Spiderman to find him.

“Even with all my knowledge,” he said, “of the events at your point in time I will not give up the—”

With a roar that might have set off an avalanche Doctor Octopus in a fit of passion swung a mechanical arm into Otto, cutting him off. With the wind knocked out of him Otto sailed into a snowdrift just missing a collision with a deadly stone in the cranium.

Plumes of smoky breath steamed out of the growling form of Doctor Octopus whose head bowed forward like a bull about to charge. With teeth set and fists clenched and eyes blinded by rage for a few moments more he remained suspended just a few feet off the ground where the arms had lifted him upon his throwing his younger self without thinking. Yet as Otto from the necessity of escaping the chill of the snow pushed himself onto his knees and clutched his stomach where he had been thrust backwards Doctor Octopus remembered feeling a pain in his stomach that day of setting up illegal experiments even before he knew they were experimenting on human subjects. He had thought it had been caused by stress, for he had not noticed it until after the phone call that woke him from sleep that morning. It lasted too after the mystery of the experiment had been unveiling the next day as well as a few other aches and pains.

At least he knew now that he was not as physically weak as he had supposed himself to be to conjure up pains from fear and guilt. Somehow, however this just made Doctor Octopus more annoyed.

He pulled back a few tentacle steps and though he continued to leer, his consciousness over his emotions had returned. He could not risk harming that miserable little guppy anymore than he already was no matter how irritating.

Not engaging with his future self but only with his present thoughts, Otto pulled his arms against his chest and shuddered miserably. With a moan, he rocked back and forth on his knees a little feeling utterly sorry for himself.

“Oh, get up,” growled Doctor Octopus. “Get in the pod before I freeze to death.”

After a moment, Otto nodded wearily and lifted himself to his heavy feet. Hardly had he taken more than two steps when another arm not of Doctor Octopus’ will whipped through the air and sent him into the snow a second time.

Doctor Octopus gasped, but death did not echo to his present form as when the future Octopus had just about killed Otto the first time. He leapt between his future self and the heap of flesh in the snow and barred the way with his tentacles as a fence in front of him.

The future Octopus leered a moment in silence at the panting Doctor Octopus. He cocked his head with almost animal-like curiosity or the morbid interest of a Terminator. Like a cross between both he set his weapons at the ready, two on each side like an alpha with its four best of the pack. His decision was made, and in a second almost too fast for Doctor Octopus to react. The future Octopus aimed his claws, all four, straight for for the heart of Doctor Octopus.

CRASH!

The arms clanged together just in time to save the violently pumping organ. Two flashlights shattered on contact, and it was only quick thinking that saved the arms from further damage as Doctor Octopus flung his arms away just in time before the claws of the future snapped all four of his claws right off like popping dandelion heads. He rode on his arms over a ledge and snatched Otto from the ground, rolling him away from the fight.

A future arm snatched at that same arm, and Otto just barely scrambled out of their collision himself.

Planting two arms in the ground Doctor Octopus attempted to throw his older self, but he had barely lifted him before future Octopus had thrown him. He smashed onto the side of a cliff, and his arms slipped on the ice on the rock, and his bones collided still. Not enough to break them, but as he was released from the future hold he fell limp and almost passed out. In fact for a few seconds he allowed the future Octopus to believe he had lost consciousness if only to catch him off guard long enough to somehow fight back after falling into the snow.

Future Octopus either was not falling for it or did not care, however and would have ripped his head clean off had not Doctor Octopus used an arm to pull out of the way and up onto the rocks.

Thus they fought along the stepping stones on the sea of snow. Doctor Octopus remained for the most part on the defensive, for he was not sure how to fight. If he fought the arms of the future it would be futile. If he actually succeeded in reaching the flesh of the future he would surely kill him. It would not be long before he would not have a choice, but he resolved to resist it as long as he could hoping that he could outlast his future self. Surely he would grow tired eventually, but he could see that he was using every spare ounce of energy in this fight. It was a fight that his future self did not care if he could walk away from for it would end both combatants if he won.

Smashing rocks, climbing to and fro, long tentacles thrashing and swiping claws, it was a queer sight to behold. Otto did what he could to stay out of the way of the rubble, and it did not take long before the duelers were far enough away from him for that not to be a problem. But he did not want one arm out of his sight for fear of it swooping in for the kill. Both him now and his intermediate future.

Just missing Doctor Octopus’s head by mere hairs, future Octopus wrenched out his claw from the cliff face. A small landslide of icicles and severed rocks tumbled down, and Doctor Octopus shielded himself well enough. An angry cry came from his future self causing Doctor Octopus to pause and to look back from where he had leapt.

A burning fear overtook him for his future existence. The image of his frail future self being crushed beneath the rubble around the corner of the stone wall was not hard to ignore, but another loud growl echoed soon afterwards, and it cannot be said that the sound brought Doctor Octopus relief.

An explosion of rocks erupted out of the snow from which the future Octopus emerged. Again Doctor Octopus just barely leapt out of the way leaving future Octopus to demolish another stone outcropping.

Forget fighting like Electro, Doctor Octopus suddenly thought in anger despite everything. Now my future self is fighting like Rhino!

But even Rhino’s methods had their good points, and a mentally distracted Doctor Octopus even for that second was all that the one-minded future Octopus needed to snatch his prey. Or at least he snatched a claw which was snapped off leaving an arm defenseless.

“Rah!” snarled Doctor Octopus as he looked up at the spark flying from the writhing end of the tentacle like a snake without a head.

In that surprise future Octopus was able to snap off a second claw with ease.

With a determined growl, Doctor Octopus leapt over the top of the future Octopus and at the same time swinging a remaining claw beneath his future self in order to trip him up. Sure it was a Spiderman tactic, but it seemed to work at first. That is, it worked until a gliding future claw cut off the desired third claw suddenly from behind in a similar tactic.

No! he thought.

Grabbing him by the harness then in lightning flash of speed, future Octopus smashed his younger self against a stone wall. The arms saved his spine from breaking, but he felt it stronger this time. Maybe he was just wearing out and had been bumped around one too many times. Maybe without the claws there the arms could not absorb the shock as well.

Doctor Octopus’ eyes narrowed as the future Octopus brought himself towards him. He flashed out a single deadly, glinting blade from a free arm, for he had two arms holding down his younger self. But Doctor Octopus was not paying attention to the blade as much as he took note in the sparking life support system.

His eyes widened, and he looked up at the face of his future.

The landslide did some damage, after all, he thought.

Weakness was beginning to appear in future Octopus’ wrinkled brow. Even the blade he had prepared for skewering some part of Doctor Octopus’ body began to shake with unsteady concentration. A swirl of steam hissed through future Octopus’ grinding teeth, and the arms, as advanced and elegant as they were began to falter as their controller let out a nauseating groan. Sinking to the ground below, he released his hold on his past self and came to his knees like a broken gladiator in Roman style.

With only one claw left, Doctor Octopus lowered himself with care to the ground as well, and he stepped up to his future self gasping greedily for oxygen he could not take in. With great effort, the future Octopus lifted his head towards him and barred his teeth with a growl, but Doctor Octopus did not move as the future arms only shuddered and lifted themselves flimsily like sickly eels.

“If we get back to the time pod now,” said Doctor Octopus crossing his arms staunchly. “We can get you back to the hospital in time to save your life.”

A rabid leer was the only response future Octopus graced him before he collapsed on his side in defeat. A low growl escaped him and a babyish moan. But despite his taking his defeat childishly, there was nothing childish about the reality of the danger for his life. With that thump of a drop Doctor Octopus’ solid stance softened a little. Fear buzzed through him at the sound of that grinding, wheezing breath and writhing body then. He look like a dying insect about to curl up and blow away.

“No,” Doctor Octopus growled and dropped to his knees himself.

Surveying the damage he saw that most of it was in the battery pack more than the life support system.

Maybe…

He unscrewed the opening on the front of his harness for his own battery pack, but before he could pull it out the wrenching fighting sound of his future self interrupted him as he scraped voice and breath like a grinder with nothing left to grind. The breaths were so thin and so painful Doctor Octopus felt sick himself. His present breath grew a tad shallow as he thought of that straining heart squeezing its last ounces of strength and he shuddered suddenly with the knowledge that it would one day be his own. As the future Octopus forced his eyes open once more it was only to look with such utter hatred. Not for Spiderman. Not for anyone else but himself.

Doctor Octopus tore out his battery pack and almost dropped it in the snow. He managed to pick it back up and then he took the batter out of his future self’s pack. Screwing it in as quickly as he could he listened to the harness hum to life again, and the life support system try to whirl steadily, but it seemed only to make it worse.

“No!” shouted Doctor Octopus again.

A last wheeze was released as though with more ease than the one previous, but it was at that moment that future Octopus’ tenseness fell away too. He grew as limp as his ragged black coat and became only an empty piece of machinery on the otherwise working circuit of the harness and the arms. There was no mind to control them, and in death they now only provided electrical heat.

Doctor Octopus’ face twitched a little, his eyes wide with disbelief, with horror and anger. His lip curled, and then squeezing his eyes shut he let out a painful roar of rage in which his severed arms joined his flesh ones in a passionate display of astringent despair. It echoed through the empty labyrinth of stone and snow. It echoed into the valley and on for miles around, but the only person who heard it was himself. At least the two of them.

Otto who had caught up with his future selves by this time trembled in his coat as he looked on upon the lifeless heap before the raging Doctor Octopus.