Chapter Summaries

Dilos and Chloe visited Clark at the nursing home, where they met Cassandra, a blind woman who could see the future by touching people. Cassandra’s reaction to Dilos unsettled him, and after they left she revealed that his fate was unusually chaotic.

• Dilos and Chloe found Clark in Room 412, where he was keeping Cassandra company.
• Cassandra shook Dilos’s hand, called him unusual, and fell silent when Clark asked what she had seen.
• Clark explained that Cassandra had gained the power to foresee the future after losing her sight in the meteor shower twelve years earlier.
• Dilos tried to sense Cassandra but felt nothing, then regained his composure when Chloe took his hand and decided to return at night.
• After Dilos and Chloe left, Cassandra told Clark that someone close to him would die in a few days, then described Dilos’s fate as chaotic and unsettled.

Dilos secretly visited Cassandra at the nursing home to ask what she had foreseen and whether fate could be changed. Cassandra said his future was impossible to predict and that his presence changed other people’s lives, leaving him with a warning to face the future and remain true to himself.

• Dilos sneaked into the nursing home and entered Cassandra’s room after she told him he could come in.
• Dilos asked Cassandra what she had foreseen about him and whether fate could be changed or controlled.
• Cassandra explained that futures she had once considered fixed had changed after she met Dilos, and that Clark Kent’s future had become unpredictable and less lonely.
• Cassandra told Dilos that Tina should have died but was alive, and warned him that his influence could change people’s fates for better or worse.
• Cassandra urged Dilos to look toward the future and stay true to himself, and Dilos nodded.

After reflecting on his uncertain future, Dilos felt more confident and accepted a part-time assistant position with Dr. Curtis Connors. He discovered Chloe was investigating Harry Falk’s apparent return and murder, and took charge of the case while ordering her to stay home.

• Dilos decided that strength mattered more than knowing what the future held and left town feeling cheerful.
• Dilos told Chloe that Lex had arranged for him to work part-time as Dr. Curtis Connors’s assistant.
• Dilos caught Chloe gathering information about a murder case and realized she was helping Clark investigate.
• Chloe explained that Harry Falk, a murderer from decades earlier, had disappeared from the nursing home before a new killing using his old method.
• Dilos ordered Chloe to investigate from home while he handled the case, and promised to lecture her about her promise and her relationship with Clark.

Dilos discovered that Harry Fok had returned young and was targeting the descendants of the jurors who sent him to prison. After warning Pete and finding Jonathan and his wife in a warehouse, Dilos rushed to locate them.

• Dilos found Green Kryptonite at the lake where Harry Fok had disappeared and realized it might have caused Harry's de-aging.
• Dilos compared the old trial article with the latest newspaper and concluded Harry was seeking revenge on the jurors' descendants, including Pete and Clark.
• Dilos failed to reach Pete, Jonathan, or his wife by phone and found the wiring and circuit breaker at Pete's house damaged.
• Dilos reached Pete through the Torch Newspaper, warned him that Harry was hunting him, and told him to stay among other people.
• Dilos found Clark's house damaged and Jonathan and his wife missing, then used X-Ray Vision to spot three people inside a warehouse.

Dilos found Harry Falk holding Jonathan and Martha Kent captive in a warehouse and attacked to stop him from strangling Jonathan. His weapons failed to injure Harry, but Dilos used Heat Vision to distract him and carry the Kents outside, where Harry pursued them.

• Dilos followed the footage to a warehouse and discovered Harry Falk holding the battered Jonathan and Martha Kent captive.
• Harry prepared to strangle Jonathan with piano wire while Martha pleaded for him to stop.
• Dilos struck Harry in the back of the head with a tactical pen, but Harry's body repelled the blow.
• Dilos concealed his use of Heat Vision behind a goofy pose and burned Harry's head enough to make him release Jonathan.
• Dilos carried Jonathan and Martha out of the warehouse, but Harry recovered and charged after them.

Dilos escaped Harry Falk in his Lamborghini, then used an extreme drift to crash into him and knock him unconscious. He checked Jonathan and Martha for injuries before leaving and calling Lex.

• Harry Falk chased Dilos and the two elderly people toward the Lamborghini, but Dilos got them inside and started the car just before Falk could reach them.
• Dilos fastened Jonathan and Martha's seat belts, then turned the Lamborghini around and drove toward Harry Falk despite Jonathan's protests.
• Dilos used a high-speed drift to strike Harry Falk and send him flying into a tree, leaving him badly injured and unconscious but alive.
• Dilos checked Jonathan and Martha with X-Ray Vision, advised them to get examined, and left while they called after him.
• Dilos dialed Lex's number.

Dilos told Lex that the Fountain of Youth had failed to preserve a Mutant’s youth, then left Smallville after secretly preparing Chloe to learn Clark’s secret. Chloe watched Dilos’s videos, accepted Clark’s powers, and decided to pursue him as Dilos headed to New York.

• Dilos explained that Lex’s Fountain of Youth only briefly rejuvenated a Mutant before the man rapidly aged and died.
• Lex revealed that people wanted to buy the film rights to Harry Potter, and Dilos said their interest was predictable.
• Dilos left Smallville without telling Chloe goodbye, leaving her a locked box and a video delivered by Gabe.
• Chloe watched footage of Clark displaying superhuman strength and speed, then heard Dilos explain why he had hidden Clark’s powers from her.
• Chloe decided to pursue Clark, opened the box, and found Dilos’s guide to winning him over.
• Dilos arrived in New York and guessed that Chloe had found his gifts, while the preview introduced his upcoming meeting with Peter Parker.

Dr. Connors welcomed his new interns and described his goal of using science to heal disabilities, before Dilos Sullivan proposed cross-species gene therapy. Dilos asked Dr. Connors to let him prove his biological expertise.

• Dr. Connors welcomed six interns to his laboratory and explained his ambition to heal his severed arm and eliminate illness-related suffering.
• A Chinese American intern suggested stem cells, and Dr. Connors said his own approach was bolder.
• Dilos Sullivan proposed introducing genes from other species to promote cell regeneration, using spotted gar genes as an example.
• An intern mocked the idea because patients might grow gills, but Dilos said scientists had to face such problems directly.
• Dr. Connors recognized Dilos as Lex Luthor's recommended candidate and reconsidered his assumption that the novelist lacked scientific talent.
• Dilos told Dr. Connors that biology was his strongest subject and asked for a chance to prove it.

Dr. Connors tested Dilos and the other interns with a timed laboratory task, and Dilos’s extraordinary speed and precision impressed him. As Dilos waited for the centrifuge, Dr. Connors asked what he had learned at school.

• Dr. Connors introduced the interns to his laboratory and explained that he needed a capable assistant.
• Dr. Connors assigned the interns stations and asked them to extract liquid from two flowers, mix it with powder, and separate the mixture within an hour.
• Dilos carefully washed and finely chopped both flowers at remarkable speed while the other interns were still cutting theirs.
• Dilos skillfully distilled the petals, mixed the extracted liquids with the powder, and put the mixture in the centrifuge.
• Dr. Connors watched Dilos complete the procedure without mistakes and asked him what he had learned at school.

Dilos earned Dr. Connors's senior assistant position and quickly mastered the additional research notes he received. While wondering how to learn more from Dr. Connors, he wandered into Queens and encountered Peter Parker, whom he realized was Spider-Man.

• Dilos proved his biology knowledge and practical skills, earning Dr. Connors's senior assistant position among the seven interns.
• Dr. Connors gave the interns research notes, and Dilos received a packet twice as thick as the others'.
• Dilos refused to share his extra notes and mastered all their contents in less than five days.
• After finishing his lab work, Dilos wandered into Queens while thinking about how to learn more from Dr. Connors.
• Dilos met Peter Parker, then recognized him as Spider-Man when a hostile teenager called out to him.

Dilos intervened when Flash confronted Peter over talking to Mary Jane, and quickly overpowered Flash and his two companions. He let the bullies go with a warning, leaving them shaken and fleeing.

• Flash confronted Peter and accused him of ignoring a warning to stay away from Mary Jane.
• When one of Flash's companions tried to shove Dilos, Dilos seized his arm and left him pleading in pain.
• Flash punched Dilos, but Dilos blocked the blow and knocked Flash to the ground.
• Flash's remaining follower ran away, while Dilos released the injured short guy and explained that his arm was not broken.
• Dilos warned Flash and the short guy to stop bullying people, and they fled together.

Dilos and Peter Parker bonded over Dilos’s muscles, writing, and scientific knowledge, and Peter invited him home. Dilos accepted, hoping to find a hidden backup of Richard Parker’s research.

• Peter admired Dilos’s strength and asked how he had built his muscles.
• Dilos removed his glasses, and Peter recognized him as the author Dilos Sullivan and excitedly introduced himself.
• Dilos accidentally called Peter “Spider-Man,” then covered his slip and put his glasses back on to avoid attracting fans and paparazzi.
• Dilos and Peter chatted about books, biology, and physics, and Peter invited Dilos to his home.
• Dilos accepted the invitation, hoping Richard Parker had hidden a backup of his research on cross-species genetic transplantation.

At Peter Parker’s home, Dilos enjoyed dinner with Peter and his family before remembering the notebook Richard Parker had hidden beneath the basement. After reading its contents with X-Ray Vision, Dilos recognized the correct decay-rate algorithm, then sensed someone watching him and tracked the watcher fleeing across the street.

• Aunt May and Uncle Ben welcomed Dilos warmly and urged him and Peter to eat more.
• Dilos left Peter’s home and returned to his rented room, where he resisted calling his family in Smallville.
• Dilos recalled using X-Ray Vision to read Richard Parker’s hidden notebook and recognized the symbol for the decay-rate algorithm.
• Dilos wondered how to get the remaining knowledge from Dr. Connors.
• Dilos sensed a watcher nearby, located the watcher on a rooftop across the street, and prepared to pursue them as they fled.

Dilos pursued the shadow who had been spying on him, using his psychic ability to track the man through the alleys. He caught and restrained the shadow, then demanded to know who he was and who had sent him.

• Dilos spotted the shadow fleeing down the building and leaped across the rooftops to pursue him.
• Dilos raced after the shadow and followed him through winding alleys with help from his psychic senses.
• After realizing Dilos was deliberately prolonging the chase, the shadow grew angry, and Dilos struck his knee with a thrown tactical self-defense pen.
• Dilos immobilized the fallen shadow with An Jin, slammed him against a wall, and grabbed him by the throat.
• Dilos demanded to know the shadow's identity and who had sent him to spy.

Dilos discovered that the man who tried to flee was Jay Pike, a Mafia tracker working for Kingpin, and learned Pike had been watching Dr. Connors rather than targeting him. Three days later, Kingpin confronted his men over Pike’s death and demanded they identify the masked killer, whose actions had erased surveillance footage across New York.

• Dilos stopped Jay Pike from biting down on a hidden cyanide capsule and searched his memories.
• Dilos learned that Jay Pike worked for William Fisk, also known as Kingpin, and had been tracking Dr. Connors and his interns.
• Dilos checked Jay Pike for surveillance devices, then killed him and sent Kingpin a threatening video using Pike’s phone.
• At Fisk Enterprises, Kingpin demanded to know who had killed Jay Pike and sent him the video.
• Ster and an elderly man reported that the masked killer had destroyed street cameras and police surveillance backups, leaving them unable to identify the culprit.
• Kingpin ordered his men to keep a low profile while investigating the killer and threatened anyone who harmed his people.

Dilos earned Dr. Connors’s trust and became his lab assistant and student, learning cross-species genetic technology. When Dr. Connors identified the decay rate algorithm as the key unsolved problem, Dilos already knew the answer from Richard Parker’s notebook and planned to work backward from it.

• Over three days, Dilos impressed Dr. Connors and used ideas from Richard Parker’s notebook to draw closer to him.
• Dr. Connors invited Dilos to assist with his experiments and offered him a room in the lab, which Dilos eagerly accepted.
• Dr. Connors showed Dilos the core laboratory and taught him as they worked together over the following month.
• At the Goodheart Laboratory, Dr. Connors explained that the decay rate algorithm was the major obstacle to advancing cross-species genetic implantation.
• Dilos reassured Dr. Connors while privately planning to master the algorithm using the answer he had found in Richard Parker’s notebook.

Dilos gave up on reverse-engineering Richard Parker’s decay-rate algorithm and used it to design a serum based on mutant spider genetics. After a successful simulation and further testing with his own blood, he bred experimental spiders that began changing after exposure to the serum.

• Dilos struggled for days with failed simulations while helping Dr. Connors study Richard Parker’s notes.
• Dilos secretly used the lab’s simulator to test spider gene pairings with genetic data from other species.
• The simulator found viable gene combinations, including pairings based on large felines and ants.
• Dilos analyzed his own blood and ran more simulations to create a spider serum tailored to reduce rejection in his body.
• Dilos placed more than a dozen experimental spiders in a sealed container, and they began changing after inhaling the aerosolized serum.

Dilos found a working decay-rate algorithm that let Dr. Connors successfully simulate lizard-gene limb regeneration, while keeping the source of his work secret. He began preparing the mutated spiders for breeding and planned to use their venom to gain enhanced abilities, a process he expected to take at least a month.

• Dilos entered the algorithm into the simulator, and the simulated mouse regrew its amputated limb without adverse effects.
• Dr. Connors thanked Dilos and agreed to run more implantation simulations before making the serum.
• Dilos concealed his use of Richard Parker’s notes and his illegal experiments, then gave Dr. Connors the algorithm.
• Dilos separated the modified spiders into individual containers and planned to move them into sturdier ones after the serum fused with their bodies.
• Dilos planned to breed second-generation mutant spiders and later use their venom to make a serum for himself before falling asleep.

Dilos raised a second generation of Mutant Spiders, finding them more stable and less aggressive but unusually fast-growing and physically powerful. After completing the Spider Serum, he injected it into his arm and waited for the mutation to begin.

• Dr. Connors made gene-implantation serums and began testing them on mice in alloy containers while Dilos rented a hidden house and kept studying for his exams.
• Dilos's first-generation Mutant Spiders fused with the serum, became aggressive, and bred a second generation, after which he killed the first generation.
• Dilos found that the second-generation spiders were more genetically stable, grew quickly, ate heavily, and developed tiger-like fangs and claws, along with impressive speed and jumping ability.
• Dilos collected venom from more than thirty second-generation Mutant Spiders, prepared a syringe of Spider Serum, and injected it into a vein in his arm.

After injecting the Venom serum, Dilos endured an eight-hour transformation and woke with greatly enhanced strength and an overwhelming hunger. After eating enough to restore his body, he discovered that sharp claws could extend and retract between his fingers.

• Dilos endured the heat from the Venom serum’s effects for eight hours before exhaustion forced him to sleep.
• Dilos woke hungry, cracked a tile with one step, and realized the serum had changed him despite his unchanged appearance.
• Dilos tore off his fridge door and devoured its contents, then ordered dozens of fast-food meals when he remained ravenous.
• Dilos ate the deliveries until his body regained its normal shape and his hunger subsided.
• Dilos discovered four pairs of long, pale claws between his fingers, which silently retracted as he watched.