Orphic | Spider-Man

TWELVE

OH MY GOD!" Octavia screamed as the upper arms latched into the cement side of a building. She screamed as the lower tentacles shot out to grab a ledge, flipping Octavia upside down between buildings. 
      The arms were swinging like a monkey, a little shakier and rustier than Spider-Man, but good enough. 
      "HELP!" Octavia screamed into the night. Her cries echoed off the bricks of the dark alleys the tentacles swung her through. She was still upside down when the tentacles stuck themselves into the sides of two buildings between fire escapes and started climbing. Octavia wasn't sure if the blood was rushing to her head, or if it all had already due to the swishing sounds she heard in her ears. 
      "Someone save me from myself!" Octavia cried as the arms took her higher. 
      One resident in their apartment complex from one of the buildings the tentacles was attached to yelled back, "SHUT UP!" She also scared quite a few families and children tucked into bed when she passed by their apartment windows. 
      There were too many sounds, too many lights, not enough lights, too many smells of musty alleyways and metal scraps. Octavia's brain was bouncing like it was stuck in a bouncy house. She could hear discordant classical music playing in her ears--and she hated classical music. The way the arms were making her spin made Octavia see the world like it was a Jackson Pollock painting. 
      My vomit is about to make a Jackson Pollock painting. she thought, squeezing her stomach tightly as to not let the food and drinks within it spill. 

      She was flipped upright when the arms pulled her on top of the apartment building. Her head bobbed like she had stood up too quickly, as she saw checkerboard patterns in front of her eyes and flailed her arms. Octavia squirmed and reached for the button in the back of the waistband to shut down the arms. She'd be a paraplegic stuck on top of an apartment building with mechanical robot arms and no cellphone, but that sounded better than what was happening now. However, when she tried to hit the button, one tentacle closed its claws to slap her hand away. 
      The arms had taken her all the way to lower Manhattan faster than she could've arrived there by taxi. The arms moved her to the edge of the apartment building, and just when Octavia thought they were going to jump, they froze. Sirens and shouting came from below, and when the arms tilted her forward, Octavia saw Monroe's Jewelry Store, and cops cars parked out in front. The shades of the store's windows were drawn, so perhaps the Mambas were listening in to the news when word got out that Spider-Man was taken hostage. 
      "No, no this-this is crazy!" she whispered to the two front tentacles as the lower ones balanced her on the roof. "We're going to get killed--and seen--but mostly killed! A-And I'm not as strong as Spider-Man, I don't have skill or technique--and you guys have sharp, pointy doo-dads and can punch through cement." 
      The two front arms looked at her, their claws open, spinning and whirring. They watched her intently. 
      "He'll be fine, the FBI is coming. I'm in control now, so let's just go." Octavia spat. Just as the tentacles turned her around, she froze, thinking on what she just said. "I'm in control. . ." 
      She looked to the left upper claw. Then at the flower pot in the corner of the roof. The arm, without looking at the flower pot, shot at it, gripping the rim with its claw and bringing it back to Octavia. She then thought of smashing it. The claw did just that. Rusty orange pieces flew everywhere on the roof. 
      "I'm in control," she said. The claws seemed to nod in agreement. 
      A plan began to form. 

- - - 

Inside Monroe's Jewelry Store, Spider-Man struggled against against his restraints. They were robotic handcuffs that that were nearly glued onto his hands like metal gloves. He was unable to shoot web fluid, and they were like magnets when near each other. The Manhattan Mambas had pinned Spider-Man down, put the cuffs on, wrapped his arms around a pillar in the corner of the store and turned the cuffs on so they could connect to one another. He had struggled for a while, but finally, Spider-Man was now sitting on the dark green carpeted floor which was encrusted with gold sparkles. 
      He had stopped struggling against the restraints when he tired himself out after trying to break them. Now, he was anxiously waiting for the FBI as members of the Manhattan Mambas were filling bags with cash from the register and jewelry from the display cases. Every so often, a few of the Mambas snickered at Spider-Man, mocking him, trying to make him crack under pressure, but Spider-Man was unbreakable, and had been for a few months now. What got him into this mess was his anger. Sometimes the bubbling in his stomach rose and gave him a strong advantage to go crazy on a thief, and sometimes it blinded him with tunnel vision, allowing him to only perform a mediocre job.