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“No it’s fine, you can touch it!”
“I ain’t touching it!”
“Like, it ain’t poisonous, man, seriously.”
“Then ya touch it.”
“I don’t wanna touch it!”
“’Cause it’s poisonous!”
“No, it’s just fucking creepy!”
“Ha! Chicken!”
“Fuck off! You asked me and I’m telling you it’s safe, but I ain’t gonna touch it ‘cause it’s fucking nasty.”
“And how do ya know it’s safe?” Larson poked the huge spider with a broom they found in the janitor closet. It hardly moved.
“It looks just like those in the Indiana Jones movies, and they didn’t poison him, duh!” Kid looked at the other man, both crouching in the corner of a currently empty meeting room.
Larson seemed to be thinking it over. “Are ye sure? All these damn spiders look the same to me.”
“It’s like, the same size,” Kid put his cupped hands close together to illustrate it. “And it’s all hairy, like in the movie. Man, trust me!”
Larson poked the spider again. “Hm, guess it can’t be that bad.” He stared at the arachnid, a twist to his mouth it concentration, and then he started creeping closer.
Kid watched him with bated breath, silently cheering him on.
“What are you two doing here?”
Kid and Larson sprang to their feet. The resonant voice behind them was very familiar.
“Boss, we found a huge spider!” Kid recovered first. “But it’s chill, it ain’t poisonous.”
“A huge spider? Here?” Natla gestured around, to the meeting room, or possibly to the Natla Technologies building as a whole.
“Yeah!” both agreed with excitement.
Natla narrowed her eyes and walked over, the other two parting for her so she could look at their find.
She pursed her lips when she saw. “Did it bite either of you?”
“Uh, no?” Larson shrugged.
She nodded. “Well, you’re right, it’s not poisonous. It’s venomous . And I’ll be talking to the Arachnology Department about one of their specimens getting out.” She made her way to a small kitchenette attached to the meeting room, grabbed the largest mug she could find, and clamped it over the fairly lethargic spider. “I’ll let them collect it.”
“It… is venomous?” Kid scratched his head.
“Yes,” she set her hands on her hips. “Poisonous are things that poison you when you eat them. Venomous are things that poison you if they sting you or bite you.”
“Fuck, so it’s poisonous?” Kid took a step back. “Or-or whatever, it can poison us?”
“Dude you said it was safe!”
“It was safe in the movies!”
“Both of you.” Natla started, massaging her forehead. “Silence.” They actually did. She looked up. “Don’t base your knowledge of spiders on movies. And,” she glared so they paid full attention, “especially don’t assume animals found in this building are safe. The department is working on several projects that could turn normally harmless specimens into something deadly. Understood?”
They both nodded dutifully.
Then Kid’s eyes widened. “Wait, boss, it’s… a mutated spider ?”
“In a way,” she answered carefully, with a sinking feeling.
“Would it give me spider powers if-”
“Definitely not!” she slashed her hand through the air.
“But how can you be sure?” he whined. “it worked for Spider-Man!”
“This is not a movie, and not a comic book either.” She should be doing other things. The board of directors was being annoying again with their questions and she had five contracts to go through and sign and there was a potential new lead on the location of Qualopec’s tomb and she didn’t eat since morning and it was already four in the afternoon.
“Yeah but they explained it really well in the comics, like, I know all about it, it could really work-”
“No,” Natla pointed a finger to the boy’s face. “Go expand your comics knowledge if you want, but don’t apply it to real life.”
“Ya know how much cooler my tricks would be with spider powers?” he pulled his skateboard out of nowhere.
Natla stared at him, unamused, until he started squirming. Larson was silently backing off towards the exit.
“Did you do your homework yet?” she asked at last.
Kid cringed. “I don’t have much, I can do that lat-”
“Go do your homework. Expand your knowledge in something actually useful.”
“Spider powers would be useful,” Kid muttered but stepped on his skateboard and rolled slowly out of the room in search of his school bag.