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Marvel: King of The Swarm Chapter 53: Off to The Races
🕑 Added 2025-07-05 12:14:41 +0000 UTCAfter a moment of hesitation, MJ climbed into the Cradle and couldn't help but sigh as her body sank into the impossibly soft, gel-filled padding that conformed around her body, creating the perfect mold.
"I know, comfortable, right?" Harry commented as he continued to type in commands into the control board, "I would have my bed made out of it, but even I'm not spoiled enough to commission a million-dollar bed."
MJ grunted as she shook her head, "I don't think I'll ever get used to when you talk about millions of dollars like a normal thing."
"Well, don't say that because soon enough you're going to be paid in millions," Harry corrected, making MJ's heart pound in her chest.
"You do realize how fucking insane all of this is," Mary asked not knowing whether to laugh or cry, "I didn't even tell my parents about this, they think I'm with Betty and Liz studying for a test."
"Well, it's a good thing you're eighteen and you can legally consent to surgeries without a guardian," Harry muttered as he typed in one last sequence, "Now just lie back and let the Cradle do its thing."
MJ let out a nervous breath before following Harry's directions, letting her head fall back and closing her eyes as the lid dropped down and closed with a hiss as it sealed her in.
Counting down from fifty in her head, MJ tried to calm her nerves as the Cradle started to hum and vibrate while the lights inside started to flash ominously. MJ's hands were clenched into fists as she tried to summon all of her courage and bravery, only for the light show to suddenly stop.
Opening her eyes, which she hadn't even realized she had squeezed shut, MJ blinked as the Cradle opened, "And one moment, just need to collect a blood sample."
"Ow!" MJ shouted mostly in surprise as there was a slight prick on the nape of her neck that she reached up and rubbed, but was unable to find anything.
MJ looked over to see Harry with a shit-eating grin on his face as he glanced from her to the monitor, "Everything seems to be fine, but your heart rate was a bit elevated. Any idea what that might be about?"
"Fuck you," MJ muttered under her breath as she climbed out of the Cradle while glaring at Harry who couldn't contain himself.
"I told you this was a quick procedure, not my fault you acted like I was gonna gut you like a pig," Harry muttered with a roll of his eyes, "Now do you want to keep complaining or talk about your results?"
MJ fell silent but continued to glare at Harry, who smirked, "That's what I thought...you scored just above average on the BPA, meaning we can jump into Phase 1 of Augmentation."
"Phase 1 of how many?" MJ asked, causing Harry to tap a button on the monitor, which projected a diagram of the human body and its various internal systems.
"There are 15 phases in a standard augmentation, each corresponding to a different bodily function, some of them are done in tandem since nothing within the body operates in complete isolation. The first four phases, aim to enhance physical strength and durability, by greatly increasing bone and, muscle density through gene therapy to augment cellular formation, along with the implantation of seed grafts that will infuse your skin with a regenerating dermal lattice made out of a special diamond composite which will allow your skin to rival most bullet vest and modern body armors." Harry explained as the diagram flipped through each corresponding body part in a helpful visual demonstration.
"I'm gonna have diamonds growing in my skin?" MJ asked with wide eyes, "How am I supposed to go anywhere when I'm literally worth a million dollars?"
"There won't be any visible diamonds; the lattice is just a microscopic mesh that the seeds will create by using specialized proteins that can bind carbon atoms together in the correct pattern to form the diamond allotrope." Harry explained only for MJ's eyes to glaze over, "You didn't understand any of that, did you?"
"Bits and pieces," MJ answered with a helpless shrug, making Harry shake his head helplessly, "Well, just make sure before the procedures to ask any questions so you fully understand exactly what you're agreeing to."
"Would I have any real reason to object after coming this far?" MJ asked.
"Probably not, none of the surgeries will change how you look, they'll actually probably make you hotter as your body becomes the perfect version of itself," Harry muttered absently as he took out an electronic pad and started to jot down some notes with a stylus.
"Oh, so you think I'm hot already," MJ teased, hoping to flip the table on Harry and get back at him.
"Yeah, I've got a thing for redheads," Harry replied with a straightforward face, before glancing MJ up and down, "And thighs."
Despite her best efforts, MJ felt her mouth go dry as she glanced away and tried to fight the blush creeping up her cheeks.
"I'm gonna let you cool off in here while I do my magic behind the curtain. Madison should be back in a few minutes to go over some legal stuff and onboarding before you sign the dotted line." Then, without another word, Harry turned and walked right back out the door, leaving MJ staring vacantly into space as she tried to ignore her pounding heart, 'Damnit Osborn, can you just fumble once like the rest of us.'
MJ then turned as the door opened again, and she found Madison waiting for her, who raised an eyebrow as she took in MJ's current state. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, and that's the problem," MJ muttered before she turned away, "But I'll get over it... Harry said we had some things to go over."
"Yes, but let's go to a more appropriate environment to discuss such delicate matters," Madison suggested, while gesturing for MJ to join her in the hallway.
---
"Alright, everyone, listen up!" Harry's voice rolled through the lab as he walked through the doors, instantly gathering the eyes of all the technicians and scientists gathered in the room, "We've just received the genetic sample of our first Ascendent scheduled to begin the augmentation process."
A round of applause echoed through the room, and Harry nodded in agreement, "Yes, it's a very exciting milestone, it also allows me to demonstrate how this lab will be utilized and the standard procedure all genetic information will go through as it's stored in the codex."
Making his way over to the control board, Harry typed in the starting sequence, causing the room around them to come alive. "First, the collected sample goes through sequencing, recording the entire genome, which creates a digital backup just in case anything goes wrong with the live sample. The sequencing will also highlight any anomalies or mutations and tag them for R&D, which is where you lovely people come in."
As Harry spoke, a robotic limb moving on a fixed track across the ceiling descended towards a large machine where it inserted a comparatively small needle into a port, injecting a small vial of blood. The machine then whirred to life as it started to process the blood, and every pair of eyes watched as the countless series of base pairs were quickly identified and cataloged by the machine.
"Once the digital copy is complete, the genetic sample is then purified, removing all organic and inorganic contaminants and isolating the DNA."
Still inside the same machine, the blood was poured onto a Petri dish, which started to move down a conveyor belt, visible thanks to the glass viewing panel. The blood-filled dish was subjected to a series of treatments ranging from blasts of light of ultraviolet light to injections of random chemicals that would treat for different contaminants.
The process only took a handful of minutes, but by the end, the blood had vanished, evaporated by the many treatments without even leaving behind a residue.
"The purified DNA is then ready to be encapsulated, where our blend of specialized proteins will replicate the DNA using a nutrient slurry enriched with nucleotides to synthesize the isolated genome, theoretically an infinite number of times."
Now, at the very end of the machine, a mechanical arm equipped with a nozzle sprayed the petri dish with a solution, causing the agar in the petri dish to melt away, leaving behind a vicious liquid that was vacuumed up by a pipette.
The pipette then injected itself into the capsule, a hexagonal cylinder roughly a foot long and six inches wide, with thick insulated panels and bands of metal along every vertical plane to reinforce the capsule's integrity.
With a soft click and a hiss, the capsule was then ejected from the machine, its handle sticking out of a port, where it was promptly retrieved by another mechanical arm. With a whirr of servos, the arm carried the heavy capsule towards the very center of the room where the Codex stood waiting for its first addition. Staring at the very bottom, the arm slotted the capsule into an empty slot where it locked into place with a loud click.
"Once the capsule is in place, its genetic information can be requested by the authorized personnel and will be delivered to your registered workplace by an automated system," Harry announced as he stepped away from the control board with a confident grin on his face, "With this technology and all of our minds put together Ascend will change the world as we know it!"
