In the last twelve hours I had been clubbed, kidnapped, squeezed to the point of near suffocation, and rendered helpless by human creatures that resembled the women who had been aboard Oceanus. As strange as it was, I could deal with these beings (sexual fantasies aside); I could probably even handle the dizzying heights as long as we didn’t invert again. But the thought of finding myself at the mercy of a psychotic computer that now took pleasure in torturing species it deemed expendable seemed akin to being summoned by Dr. Mengele to his laboratory in Auschwitz—a fear that terrified me to the bone.

ABE … engage Superman protocol!

Superman was an emergency protocol that duplicated the brain’s basic response to extreme duress—a powerful, superhuman condition that enabled a panicked parent to lift the rear axle of a one-ton car to free their trapped child or a hiker to run with the speed of a world-class sprinter when confronted by a ferocious grizzly. It was a desperate, dangerous tactic—one I had never used before, uncertain if my biological chip could pull me out of a physical overload on par with a commercial jet igniting an afterburner.

In a microsecond of thought, ABE fired up my adrenal glands, blasting my bloodstream with a flood of cortisol and adrenaline as it simultaneously readied my body’s sympathetic nervous system to accommodate an incredible burst of sustained physical activity. My blood pressure soared, my heart raced dangerously, pumping globs of oxygen-enriched blood in excess of two hundred beats per minute.

My senses focused like lasers. Colors magnified, exotic smells assaulted my nostrils, and sounds crackled in my ears as time appeared to slow down, even as my blood-engorged muscles threatened to tear through the fabric of my sweat suit.

Digging the balls of my feet into the spinal column that fused the spider with the woman, I stood, my quads stretching the webbing at my back, the slack enabling the crook of my right arm to snake its way around Transhuman Monique’s throat. Pressing my left palm to her temple, I twisted violently, snapping the vertebrae in her neck.

The insect screeched its rage into my mind—ABE immediately silencing its thoughts—as the paralyzed being’s legs buckled beneath me. Reaching out to the tree limb we had just scaled, I gripped the closest tangle of vines in both fists and held on as the spider creature tumbled backward into space.

For a frightening moment the webbing held fast, forcing me to support our combined weights, then the silky mass snapped and the violet preponderance of flesh and legs plummeted—nearly striking the second transhuman spider ascending to the tree trunk a hundred feet below.