"David,.Peter.-.Spider-Man.2" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

Spider-Man 2 By Peter David

Spider-Man and all related characters: TM & © 2004 Marvel Characters,
Inc.Spider-Man 2, the movie, © 2004 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All
rights reserved.


First Edition: May 2004
I
Otto Octavius needed several extra arms. Certainly the two he possessed were
proving inadequate.
Octavius was a darkly complexioned man, stout but reasonably muscular, hair
hanging loosely about his face with very little attention paid to tonsorial
trivialities. He was in his mid-forties and had an air about him that managed to
be both distracted and intense. In other words, he tended to be very focused on
things that had nothing to do with his whereabouts at any given moment.
He was busy trying to extricate himself from a taxicab on the corner of Sixth
Avenue and Greenwich Avenue, at the edge of the university campus. He held a
slide carousel in one hand; tucked in the crook of his other elbow was a folder
thick with notes, and he was clutching a briefcase with his remaining free hand.
This left him nothing with which to close the door except his foot, and he was
having difficulty maintaining his balance. Then the cabbie informed him, with no
small sense of irritation, that the twenty Octavius thought he’d handed him was
actually a ten. Now he had to try to get at his wallet.
He muttered under his breath, tried to figure what he could put down where, and
was extremely relieved when a familiar voice called from behind him, “Otto!”
A blondish man in a lab coat ran up to him. “Otto, we were supposed to meet at
the southeast corner! This is the southwest!”
“Is it?” Octavius asked distractedly. “I’m sorry, Curtis, I’m not a ship’s
navigator, you know. Can you lend me a hand?”
“If the one will be sufficient, then certainly.”
Octavius winced as he glanced at the flapping sleeve of Connors’ lab coat,
pinned at the right shoulder, underscoring the lack of an arm.
“Sorry, Curtis,” Octavius muttered to Connors.
“Yo! Buddy!” snapped the cabdriver.
“I amnot your buddy,” Octavius informed him archly.
“Damn right! What about my money?”
“Curtis,” said Octavius, nodding toward his right coat pocket. “Would you mind
pulling out my wallet? The man needs another ten.”
“Don’t worry, it’s my treat,” said Connors, removing a roll of bills from his
pocket and deftly extracting a ten.
“Curtis, I can’t allow you to—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s my pleasure, Otto,” Connors interrupted, handing the
money to the cabbie. “It’s the very least I can do. After all, you did agree to
come down here and speak to my students.”
“Yes, well… I suppose I did,” admitted Octavius. “But I insist on buying you
lunch afterward.”
Having paid the cabbie, Connors took Otto’s briefcase to help ease his load.
“I truly am sorry about the ‘lend a hand’ comment, Curtis. It was insensitive of me.”
“Nonsense.”