Qué Maravilla

Ch.2 - Half Empty, Half Full

"Layla come ON!" You repeatedly banged your fists on the holographic cage that held you.  Not too long ago Miguel had locked you in here and went off in search of Miles on Earth-1610 with what felt like the entire spider society. Well, the entire spider society, with the exception of you. With a groan you rest your forehead and the palms of your hand against the barrier. You had to get out of here. You had to help. At the very least, try to do something. You quickly regain composure and begin furiously typing coordinates on your watch.

"Don't even try it, I already restricted your access," The A.I materialized itself in front of you in its signature female avatar. Heart shaped sunglasses, a furry white coat (faux fur as she would always jokingly assure you), and the brunette bob. She didn't look at you as she spoke, her eyes instead laser focused on her nails that she was intricately filing. "You didn't really think he was gonna let you leave this place after all that, did you?" She paused and finally looked up at you with a cheeky smile, "Even if he is your boyfriend." The figure no larger than a soda can was an A.I 'LYrate Lifeform Approximation,' and none other than Miguel's personal assistant. But everyone just called her 'Lyla' for short.

As if on cue your watch projected the message, 'ACCESS DENIED. USER ON LOCKDOWN.'

"UGH!" you groan as you kick the wall behind you then sink to your feet as you let your chin hit your chest. "And he's not my boyfriend," you mumbled.

She chuckled at your immature protest, "Sorry babe." In the next instant she teleported to the front of your face, leaning so far forward that you guys were practically nose to nose. "You do know he's only doing this because he cares about you right?"

"Doesn't make it right." You mutter mostly to yourself while intentionally refusing her eye contact, instead opting to stare down at your knees.

"Can honestly you blame him?"

"No, of course not." You absentmindedly cross your arms and let your head hit the wall. "But I can't fight the feeling that we're going about this all wrong. There's definitely something we're missing. It doesn't have to be this way."

Lyla gave a small sigh, "I understand, but we can't make ourselves vulnerable to anomalies or incursions, because then you end up with universes without a spiderman, or worse..."

"A world without a spider?" You lift your head up to meet her floating frame, "Is that even possible?"

"Very."

"Wouldn't that rip a hole in the multiverse."

"You would think," she spoke while putting her hands in her coat pockets, rocking back and forth from her toes to her heels. "Mile's spider originated from Earth - 42 yet the world still stands since it left it a long while ago. Though it has high crime rates because, you know, no spiderman. Only through some undiscovered canon relationship to the rest of the multiverse has it not experienced an incursion. A detail probably so mundane it'll take eons to make the correlation. So it's connected to the multiverse,yes, but by a thread. An anomaly for sure. I'm surprised Miguel didn't teach you this."

"Yeah..." you said, completely lost in thought. In truth you knew about Earth-42. It was the only one of its kind, it had just completely slipped your mind. But now that Lyla had reminded you of its presence, she had inadvertently flipped the switch to your mental lightbulb.  A world without a spider? If Earth - 42 could survive without a spider...

"We're... not the center of the multiverse?" You spoke softly to yourself, wide eyes and  erratic, which was very unnerving to Layla.

"Girl, what are you talking about?"