บท 24: Arc One. Chapter Twenty-Four. Under The Microscope
Gwen had surprised Peter, she actually had gone out and spent about $3000 on a microscope. It then took the rest of the day to set up, making sure each calibration was correct as well as its hookup to Peter's laptop, whatever they found Gwen wanted to document. He guessed from her foul mood her dad had actually paid for it, he just didn't know it yet, and it looked expensive but it showed. It came with small sample bottles as well as a selection of swabs and other medical instruments for taking samples. Gwen had swiped a box of latex gloves and small cannulas, the needles used for drawing blood, to get a selection of tissue samples from each of them.
As they waited for the machine to calibrate and make its adjustments they decided to start with physical tests first. Understanding their limits would help with understanding what had been done to their bodies.
The first set of tests were easy, as Peter brought in water barrels filled with varying weights of water, one litre of water weighed one kilogram so even without a proper weight set they would measure just how strong they were.
As he gripped the edges of the full barrel he lifted it with ease and even Gwen surprised herself as she did the same. Full, Peter knew it could hold 3500 litres, meaning they could both lift over 3500 kilos with no strain and repeating the experiment, with a bit of balance, he could lift one in each hand. As Gwen tried the same, Peter laughed and grabbed her around the waist, lifting her and the barrel up.
"Are you calling me fat?" and he laughed as he put her down, hurriedly shaking his head.
"If I could find an ounce of fat on you I'd be surprised," and she had to agree. Whatever Poison had done she had realized that she was toned. Even her stomach was now flat and if she tensed a six-pack sprang forth. She had lost fat but gained muscle, and sadly she even thought her breasts were maybe a size smaller.
Next was spatial awareness. With his eyes closed Gwen moved across the warehouse and Peter tracked her with his finger, even facing the wrong way and as she threw a ball at him, he felt the distortion in the air and caught it before it hit him.
"Kinda cheating though, I can hear you move." and as Gwen tried the same she found that yes, as Peter moved, even if he was as quiet as possible, she could feel where he was in the warehouse.
As the machine began its final series of tests Gwen made out several signs and standing across from him, Peter stood at the doors and she walked to the office where he lived she held them up.
As he listened he could hear her,
"Repeat what is on card 2, and you'll win a prize." Gwen held up two cards and without focusing or squinting he read
"Gwen is great and I," Peter laughed, "I suck. So, what do I win?" and Gwen just smiled and grinned at him
"You'll find out later,"
With the machine beeping that its calibrations were complete, the pair headed into the office next to Peters home.
"Don't be shy and don't be a baby," she scolded Peter, requesting not just a blood and cheek sample but semen as well, and an untainted one at that. "It's not like I'm not doing the same Pete," and she motioned to the sample stick she was going to rub into herself and begrudgingly he obliged, making her strip a little for him and she felt a rush of heat through her as he stroked himself in front of her. She had seen him naked before, but this was more intimate and personal. Not that he could complain, he was paying close attention as Gwen sat in her chair and spread her legs, letting him see exactly what was between her legs and that as she expected a repeat, she had shaved herself clean for him.
Samples all collected they booted up the microscope and started with the cheeks swap. They would do Peter's samples first, given he was the host of whatever the black goo was and Gwen had been infected, as there were no abnormalities, no pain or weakening. It was a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitic one.
Peter's cells, once magnified, showed a few interesting features and Gwen stared at the display, this model used a small LCD screen rather than two eyepieces. "Shit Pete, oh shit, this is, this is, wow," she leant back in her chair,
"Your cells have a double nucleus and what looks like a lot of extra mitochondria, plus I can actually see the layer of black around the cell walls, this is amazing Pete, I mean, I know you've got stamina but this, I wish I could take organ and muscle biopsies, I bet they're just as infected," she stared at the screen again, pointing at it with a pen. "See", the black cell wall suddenly flowed into the cell, devouring the inside, dying it black then the outer wall burst and the sample shrivelled. "I bet the black is trying to survive outside your body, no host to live on, so it cannibalises the cell and then dies. This is amazing Pete, but uh, if that's this sample, the rest are probably the same," Pete shrugged and she eyed his crotch, "so uh, I need another sample"
Pete rolled his eyes, "you can work for this one though," he said as he unzipped again. Gwen winked at him and stretched over, the heat filling her palm as she began to gently stroke him.
Once she had collected her sample, Gwen examined the sperm cells under the microscope. They were all dyed a deep black colour, seemingly more vigorous and mobile than their normal counterparts, "well, that's different."
Peter laughed, "uh, think that's why it was so good?" and Gwen could only shrug, when he had finished inside her it was like a bomb going off, pleasure pulsed through her and she wondered if he was right.
yes yes, tasty tasty, Gwen just shook her head
not helping! she thought back
"These have lasted a lot longer than the cheek swabs, they still have cohesion," and they waited for a few more minutes before even these cells consumed themselves. "So it has a survival instinct, even if it dies eventually." Wrapping his arm with the rubber tube, Gwen, with deft practice, even if it had been on mice, inserted the cannula and let the blood drip into the vial. Opening the back of the machine she slid out the tube with the now black sample and slotted in the blood sample.
"Okay," Gwen waited patiently as the machine began to whirr and whine and slowly the screen filled with the sample. "Fuck Pete, look at that," in amongst the normal blood cells are a selection of black single cells and no white blood cells at all, "the symbiote seems to have taken over your immune system completely, I bet if we introduced a bacteria or virus those little bugs would get gobbled right up."
Gwen was amazed, this was the kind of thing she wanted to research at Oscorp if those bastards didn't just relegate her to report filing and scut work. She'd never do anything Peter didn't want to but this was amazing, his newfound abilities blowing everything she thought she knew about bioengineering out the water. The symbiotic creature, if it was a natural creature, wasn't anything she'd ever heard of on Earth, so she suspected that unless Oscorp or whoever infected Pete was in cahoots with an alien intelligence that the symbiote was artificial. Made in a lab somewhere and accidentally released.
"Okay, me next." Gwen swapped out the samples with her own, cheek first and was disappointed. The same cells she had seen in Peter were missing, her own sample had the same circle of, in her case, white symbiote around the outside but no extracellular features, she was a degradation of Peter's powers, not a copy. They waited and when the white circle swamped the internals of the cell rather than dying it swarmed over to another cell, integrating itself into that one, the cycle repeating until a small blob of white and black tinged symbiote remained, searching the sample bottle for more food to devour. Gwen scratched her head and took the bottle outlet the white drip onto her finger where it absorbed itself back into her skin.
"So, not a clone of your powers Pete, like a different organism altogether," she scratched the side of her head, but Peter had definitely infected her, so why was it so different?
"But I was sick remember, at Oscorp, maybe I was exposed to something first then infected, maybe it was two different things, the organism and the sickness, or maybe the sickness did something?" Peter was spitballing, trying to come up with a reason as to why they were so different.
"Hmm, if you'd been exposed to a mutagenic compound and then the symbiote, that could explain the difference. You're not a human anymore, more a blending of human and symbiote whereas I'm an infected Host for the organism." Gwen wished she had access to some of the equipment at her lab, an electron microscope would allow her to see the structure of the creature itself and the difference between them, but there was no way in hell she taking any of these samples to Oscorp. They'd both end up in test tubes, even if it wasn't Oscorp that infected him in the first place.
"We need to check the other samples," and slotting in the next vial, they saw her blood work still had normal white blood cells but had a few extra of the white and black tinged cells. "So, boosted immune system as well. Okay, don't freak out," Peter shrugged but Gwen stuck herself in the thigh with a needle, hissing as she pulled it back out.
"What the fuck Gwen?" he shouted,
"Muscle sample Pete, sorry, wasn't going to ask." Dropping the bloody needle into a sample bottle she slotted it into the machine while Peter shook his head.
"I would have if you'd asked," Peter said guilty,
"I know, but you know, physician do no harm," Gwen replied,
"that's the Hippocratic oath and while you're an intern, no doctorate just yet,"
"Yes, Pete, yet" she reminded him.
The sample soon was on the screen and Gwen had to move the camera around to get a clear image of the tissue rather than the needle. Her muscle cell was the same as the cheek swap, tinged back and white but she could see microscopic tendril extending into the muscle tissue, touching and wrapped around the mitochondria, "not as efficient but still supplying extra energy to my muscles, probably organs too."
Peter put his hand on hers, "no stabbing yourself for a sample though,"
Gwen patted the back of his hand, "Nah, not this time, okay, now for the last one, Gwen goo!"
The sample she had taken from her vaginal walls glistened on the test tube and slotted into the machine they were both surprised at what they saw.
"well, that's, uh, different," Gwen said as she watched the white/black cells of her symbiote attack and devour the black cells of Peters semen, leftover from their sex last night. The white symbiote was actively seeking out and swallowing the sperm cells whole and the black slowly faded and thickened the white symbiote cells.
"Uh, guess protection isn't really necessary is it?" Peter said and Gwen chuckled, they'd been lax in that department, letting lust overtake reason but now, she wasn't sure she'd even have a period let alone get pregnant.
"Uh, yeah, I really don't know how to deal with that," Gwen said, shaking her head at what was happening on the screen,
"I mean, I know you said you wanted to eat me but, you know, I didn't think you meant literally," he laughed.
Gwen could only cuff him with the back of her hand, symbiotes were good, she felt strong but Peter was becoming insufferable, she loved him though, but still, smug asshole.
"Yeah, thanks, Pete, you get super strength, super sexy muscles and I get super birth control, way to show me how the super-powered patriarchy works huh," and as he looked guilty she knew now she finally had something worthy to tease him about. Stupid powers.
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