Kind people, give me something to drink. I'm so hungry I have nowhere to spend the night.
An ancient Slavic greeting.
******************************
My first step nearly became my first fall.
That confused me. Why would it happen? Then it dawned on me: while I had been using the body in its 'factory configuration,' the host's muscle memory and vestibular system—both adapted to a particular center of gravity—had allowed me to move and orient myself normally. Then one excessively enterprising dimensional traveler had decided to 'upgrade' the carcass and altered that center of gravity along the way.
Now the same genius was dealing with the results of his labor.
The results were not pleasant. I would not merely have to learn how to walk again. No, it was worse: I would have to unlearn and relearn it.
And if only my problems had ended there. I wanted to eat. No. I wanted to DEVOUR, GORGE, ANNIHILATE FOOD. The worst part was that my new body was not the only hungry one. I myself was starving too. Now for the million-dollar question: what do blobs of incomprehensible matter that wander deep space for centuries actually eat? Well? Any suggestions?
Silence?
Exactly. I did not know either. And if I failed to find out soon, this world might never live to meet its future ruler. It would be terribly disappointed, of course. Why had I failed to consider the obvious possibility that Venom—exhausted by a long space flight and then by Parker's antics—was not exactly in peak condition?
Ah, regrets were useless. As one necromancer with an unhealthy sense of humor used to say, 'If I'd known where I was going to fall, I'd have stationed a zombie there with a stretcher.'
All right. I could lament the world's imperfection and the principle of instant karma—failed to think, got punished—another time. Right now I had to reach other people and find food for at least one of my bodies.
Gritting my teeth and mentally persuading my rebellious stomach to endure a little longer, I staggered toward the nearest street with the gait of a proud descendant of nomads who had become a seasoned sailor and had not left the deck of a ship in years. To distract myself from hunger, I began considering my future plans—assuming I did not die in the near future.
There was an enormous amount to do. I had to understand myself, establish something resembling a legal identity, obtain the means to live and make legitimate use of public conveniences ranging from ordinary shops to transportation, and compile a list of people whose genetic material would be extremely useful to me.
And, perhaps, a list of people I should avoid—at least in the beginning. First: understand myself. I definitely lacked the knowledge to do it alone. I was no scientist, and this situation clearly required more than a school-level grasp of biology and anatomy. I needed a qualified specialist with a laboratory and funding. We were in the Marvel universe, which meant the concentration of mad scientists per square mile exceeded every reasonable limit. At least, it ought to.
I understood perfectly well that cartoons and comic books were contradictory things even by themselves, never mind as sources of information on which one's life depended. Take Reed Richards, leader of the Fantastic Four. On one day of the week, he launched into space aboard a three-stage rocket from the roof of his own building, and spacesuits, helmets, preflight training, and the whole ritual were desperately necessary. A few days of plot time later, he had built an antigravity four-seat 'contraption' that separated into autonomous vehicles, could enter space, descend to the ocean floor, and apparently required nothing from its pilots except the ability to turn a steering wheel.
In other words, even the most canonical knowledge had to be subjected to the critical scrutiny of sane reality. Comic writers loved claiming that characters could fly to other galaxies in five minutes using the same vehicle that had just failed to cross a city in half an hour.
Still, one fact remained: the Marvel universe ought to contain a tremendous number of brilliant scientists. In the story of the Hulk alone, nearly every episode of the first season featured another genius trying to help Bruce Banner solve his problem, from the famous Tony Stark to thoroughly peculiar characters like Canadian hermits who studied ice and green-haired bargain-bin Supermen answering to 'Doctor Samson.'
The problem was that many of them would be difficult to find even if I knew their names and faces. Only a few met my requirements, and there was no guarantee every one of those few even existed in this reality.
According to the animated canon, the events of different series occurred in different parallel worlds. In the 1994 'Fantastic Four,' for example, Spider-Man was not the local Peter Parker but an alternate version whose costume was not the classic red-and-blue suit with web patterns, but something simpler with what looked like a blue quilted vest. She-Hulk worked with Iron Man there, and the Hulk's history was peculiar: he supposedly rampaged and fled from everyone, yet Bruce Banner continued his scientific work peacefully and colleagues could contact him without difficulty and invite him to collaborate.
In short, it was complicated. I could truly rely only on what Parker remembered about this world. Suppressing another painful cramp from my empty stomach, I forced myself into Spider-Man's not especially extensive memories.
So...
Norman Osborn. On one hand, he was a fairly good candidate: excellent scientific resources, significant funds, and he was less a scientist than an administrator and businessman, which meant one could negotiate with him. On the other hand, dealing with a full-blown schizophrenic could produce various unpleasant consequences, such as death or something worse. We madmen are capable of anything. Besides, his expertise leaned more toward technology than biology, although he had created the mutagenic gas that turned a human into a super-soldier. However one looked at it, that required substantial knowledge of genetics. A difficult option.
Alistair Smythe. The fellow was brilliant, understood many fields, and finding leverage would not be difficult. He had some problem with his legs, and his father was ill. With my current abilities, both might be solvable. But again, there was a problem. He was tied to the Kingpin—the local ruler of organized crime—and had effectively sold himself in exchange for a laboratory. I did not want to become involved with the Kingpin yet. I was not certain I had enough experience to suppress a man like that, and with his resources he could probably find some countermeasure against me. As for Smythe himself, people did not call him brilliant for nothing. He might quietly plant all kinds of unpleasant surprises inside me, and what would I do then? No. Men like that belonged at the bottom of the list.
Who else? Tony Stark? Do not make me laugh. First, I would have no way to get near him, because he did not live in New York and I did not even know where he did live. Second, he was two hundred years ahead of the rest of the world technologically, which implied obvious problems both in bypassing his security systems and in surviving any meeting with him. Third, he was simply paranoid—almost Batman, except Tony Stark—and there was no chance I could negotiate with him before earning his trust. How was a man like that supposed to trust an alien black puddle capable of hijacking bodies? In his place, I certainly would not, no matter what noises the puddle made.
Besides, Peter's memories contained nothing about Iron Man. Stark might not yet have created the armor or ruined his health during captivity. In other words, I might have nothing to offer him. He was a young, healthy bull with hundreds of billions in his pocket and a reputation as a genius. Why would he need me, except as an interesting laboratory specimen?
Then there was the Hulk—or rather, his 'good half,' Bruce Banner. Parker had heard something about the Hulk, but as far as I remembered, Banner specialized more in radiation. He was also hiding somewhere in the deserts of Central America, doing his utmost to avoid the military.
Beast of the X-Men—Hank McCoy—would be ideal! He had a laboratory. The cockroaches in his head were almost domesticated; his conscience would probably prevent him from leaving hidden sabotage in my carcass. And when it came to genetic abnormalities, transformations, and mutations, he had eaten a dog. Not a dog, but an ape. And he had not eaten it; he had become it. More importantly, near him was an entire crowd of such marvelous, delightful samples of unusual genetic structure that one could lick one's fingers.
My mouth filled with saliva, and my stomach growled from the depths. Right. Enough cannibalistic thinking. Focus on the problem.
Beast, then. Beast was excellent in every respect, but there were two small disadvantages.
For one, his boss was a kindly gentleman who dearly loved rummaging through other people's brains and washing those brains while preaching friendship between humans and mutants. That did not prevent him from maintaining a squad of armed killers equipped with wonder-weapons. Sending near-children to the front lines in service of his interpretation of the 'greater good' was not especially admirable either.
The second disadvantage was the simple fact that I had no idea where to find Beast or the rest of the team, even if they existed in this world. According to the cartoon's plot, they should. But who knew? What if they did not?
A depressing situation. Scientists everywhere, and no one to approach. Devour the entire biology faculty at some university? At the thought of 'devouring,' my insides twisted in another painful spasm, forcing an irritated hiss out of me. Interesting. Was I a secret masochist, constantly reminding myself of food, or was my memory already beginning to fail? Right. Do not think about it. The biology faculty, then. Assimilate their collective knowledge, so to speak.
It was a good idea. A very good one. Except I would receive an enormous mass of information that my mind might take an unknown amount of time to digest—damn it, not again! And while knowledge was certainly useful, possessing a scientist's memories did not guarantee I would think like a scientist. Though that too remained untested.
Whichever way I turned, there was an obstacle. Bad. It seemed I would have to study my own abilities through the venerable scientific method of poking things and seeing what happened—the same method that had rescued my friends and me so often during laboratory work.
Fine. The question of heroes armed with microscopes and test tubes would remain open. I believed the second objective had been acquiring a material base...
My thoughts were interrupted by a rough voice.
"Hey, rich boy. Didn't your parents ever tell you it can be dangerous to walk around the city at night? Don't worry, though. My friends and I will be happy to escort you... for a modest fee, naturally. Right, boys?"
A chorus of laughter sounded behind a man nearly seven feet tall, accompanied by several suggestions concerning precisely what form of payment could be extracted from such a pretty 'boy.'