Spider-Man: The Venom Factor Omnibus

by Diane Duane

  “That’s great, Pete! You go down there, you make sure you get some of that Cuban food. Better than up here; you can’t get the good plantain here. You get yourself a nice fried steak, and some Cuban sandwiches, and…”

  “Julio, if I start eating all this stuff, they’re going to need a forklift to move me when I get back.”

  “If you don’t eat good food when you get a chance,” Julio said severely, “God will be mad at you.”

  “If I don’t get back to the Bugle,” Peter said, checking his watch and getting up, “Kate will be mad at me. Almost as bad. See you later, Julio!”

  On the sixth floor, there was noise coming out of Kate’s office when he paused outside it. A female voice, very pleasant but raised in what sounded like extreme annoyance, said something he couldn’t make out, and was answered much more quietly. He knew that tone: Kate’s “no nonsense” voice. Peter lifted his hand to knock: the door was pulled open, so that the knock never fell. “There you are,” Kate said. “What kept you? Come on in.”

  He stepped in and Kate said, “Vreni Byrne—Peter Parker. Peter—Vreni.”

  The woman who got up from Kate’s couch to shake his hand was a petite blonde in jeans and a silk shirt, no makeup, no jewelry… and possibly one of the most stunning women he had ever seen. It was difficult not to gape at her. “Uh, hi!” Peter said, trying to get his thought processes back in order. “You were with the Chicago Trib, weren’t you?”

  She nodded, pleased. “That’s right. And I’ve seen your stuff here and there. Not bad at all. We should do all right together.”

  There was something about the way she said this that suddenly made it plain to Peter that Vreni thought his work was bad—or at least fairly substandard—but she wasn’t going to start out by alienating a photographer with whom she was being sent out on a story that didn’t particularly interest her. Peter instantly suspected that she was going to do as little work as possible on this, and intended Peter to carry it with his pictures. He’d run across this type of attitude before; it was one of many reasons why he was grateful that he was usually able to work alone. Not to mention the awkwardness of having to leave your partner to go off and change to Spider-Man. Come to think of it, he thought, that may cause problems.

  Deciding to cross that particular bridge when he came to it, Peter set his face into a smile and sat down at the other end of the couch. Vreni and Kate sat back down as well. “I’ve explained to Vreni,” Kate said, “what I was telling you earlier about the situation down at Canaveral. Since you may be away for a while, you ought to take today to get things in order for being away for a prolonged period. If you need to draw any equipment from Stores to take with you,” she said to Peter, “take care of that this afternoon—have them call my office if there are any questions.”

  “There are some long lenses that might come in handy,” Peter said, trying very hard not to let a grin of total equipment-lust show on his face. He had never had an excuse before to get his hands on such things. JJJ didn’t authorize their use that often.

  “Fine. Just take good care of them… those things are expensive.” She looked at Vreni. “Have you got a laptop with the Bugle composition software in it?”

  “Got it last week.”

  “Good, then you’re all set. Today’s Wednesday… I would like to have a report from you two on initial indications of what you’ve found by next Tuesday. Ideally, I want to put something in the Sunday supplement, the day before the Shuttle goes up. Supplement deadline is Thursday… that’s for final copy. Anything newer you find that warrants followup will go in the Sunday daily edition. Anything else?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Okay, then get on with it. Go see Travel and get your flights or whatever sorted out, and draw a company card each from Accounting. If at all possible, I want you two in Miami and starting work by Friday. Is that doable?”

  Peter looked at Vreni: she nodded. So did he.

  “Right. Now get out of here so I can get some work done.”

  Out they went, and Kate’s door closed behind them with the air of someone who had solved a very annoying problem. Peter resolved privately to ask around and see if there was something about Vreni and Kate that she should know about: some old disagreement or piece of unfinished business. One or another of the office gossips would have the info, he was sure.

  As they walked away from Kate’s office, Peter said, “Ms. Byrne—”

  “Call me Vreni. If I can call you Peter?”

  “Right. Vreni, I get the feeling that you’re not entirely overjoyed at being sent on this story—”

  She breathed in and out, then chuckled a little, almost against her will. “No, I was supposed to be going to Cannes. Miami was not exactly in my plans. But when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade…” She smiled slightly. “There are good aspects to it, I suppose. I’ve never seen a live Shuttle launch: this will be my chance. Have you?”

  “No,” Peter said, though in his career as Spider-Man, he’d traveled to space once or twice, and flown in space-faring vehicles more impressive than anything NASA had yet built.

  He also did not mention, right now, that there was one reason for going to Miami that outweighed any number of Shuttles, as far as he was concerned. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Right. So we’ll get ourselves down there and see what we can discover about this security problem they’re having. Those long lenses you were mentioning,” she added, “those can be good for getting quiet photos of things a couple of miles away, can’t they?”

  “They sure can,” Peter said. “Considering the size of Kennedy, and the fact that at least some of the things we’ll want pictures of will be off-limits…” He shrugged, and then caught her smiling at him.

  “I never yet saw a photographer,” she said, “who didn’t want to get his or her hands on one of those lenses just to play with. Nice that we’re actually going to need one.”

  Peter laughed. “Vreni,” he said, “you haven’t seen one now, either. But you’re right, I’ll need it.” He paused. “Did Kate mention the Lizard to you?”

  Vreni waved a hand. “She did, but… I don’t know—I find it kind of hard to take seriously. Crazed human super villains, yes: heaven knows there are enough of those running around. But I don’t understand what kind of damage a big crazed lizard can do. Why doesn’t someone just shoot it?”

  Peter raised his eyebrows. “It’s been tried,” he said.

  “Then somebody’s not trying hard enough.”

  “Maybe not,” Peter said, restraining himself from further comment. This was no time to get into a discussion of how the creature she was calmly suggesting should be shot was a friend of his. “But if we’re lucky, we won’t run into him. It sounds like there’s going to be enough other things about this story to keep us busy.”

  “Yeah,” Vreni said. “Let’s go down to Travel and get those tickets organized.”

  That business took about an hour, while they fought with the folks down in Travel—some of the wiliest-brained cheapskates Peter had ever met; no doubt hand-trained by Jameson—to keep from being put on a flight at three in the morning for the sake of a cheap fare. They finally settled on a noon flight out of Newark on Thursday, and Peter and Vreni were left free to go off to Accounting to get their credit cards.

  Vreni then went off to take care of personal business, and Peter went down to Stores and had Mike the equipment manager bring out every long lens that was presently available. One of them, a beautiful 2000-millimeter f8 lens, Peter was strongly tempted to simply grab and run away with, never to be seen again, but then he saw the scratch on the lens’s achromatic coating, and shook his head and pushed the lens back at Mike with the greatest possible regret. “How the heck did that happen?” he said.

  Mike, a tall handsome young black man, grinned slightly. “Jets game,” he said. “A tackle went right through the sidelines, apparently. Hit Joel Rhodes—he was covering that game—knocked him on hi
s butt and broke his leg. Knocked the lens into a bench.”

  “What a shame,” Peter said, more for the lens than for Joel, another photographer he had met and didn’t much care for; a rude and abrasive type. “Oh well. How about the fifteen, there?”

  Mike handed Peter the 1500-mm lens. It was two and a half feet long and nearly a foot wide at the lens end. “Hmm…” Peter sat there briefly doing math in his head to determine the thing’s range.

  “Pete,” Mike said, “got a little something here you should see.” He turned away, went rummaging back among the steel shelves.

  “What? I thought you said this was all the big lenses.”

  Mike came back with a box about the size of a standard personal computer case, opened it up. Peter looked inside.

  “That’s a telescope,” he said, bemused.

  Mike lifted the small cylindrical object out of its nested packing in the case. It was black, eight inches in diameter, and only about eighteen inches long.

  “Questar,” Mike said. “Yup, it’s a telescope, but look there. See the camera fitting?” He pointed at the barrel of the telescope, where there was a standard bayonet mount. “You put your 35 right there, at the Cassegrain focus. This thing can produce virtual close-ups at five miles.”

  “Wow,” Peter breathed. Even the 2000 wouldn’t have been able to do that.

  “This has been out doing nature work,” Mike said. “Something to do with those owls up in timber country. You can’t get close enough to them for photos, usually. You can with this, though.”

  “Where do I sign?” Peter said, looking over his shoulder in terror lest someone else should come in here and want it too.

  “Right here.” Mike shoved the usual equipment-requisition voucher at him. Peter scribbled hastily, while Mike put the Questar back in its case and snapped all the catches shut.

  “Manual’s inside,” Mike said. “Take good care of it. Jonah finds out I gave this to a freelancer, he’ll freak.”

  Peter seized the box and grinned at Mike. “No problem there. The question is, will you ever see me again?”

  Mike chuckled as Peter hurried off.

  The rest of the day was a whirl of preparation. Peter had to let the building super and the alarm company know that he was going to be away for a while, put a bigger tape in the answering machine, get rid of all the perishable food in the refrigerator, give MJ’s modeling agency the phone number for the Hilton in Miami, in case they couldn’t reach her themselves, and about fifty other things. When the dust finally settled, it was nearly ten o’clock at night, and he hadn’t even begun packing yet. He hadn’t had any dinner, and he was dead tired. However, there were a couple of phone calls he had to make: one which would be delightful, one not so.

  He dialed the good one first. The phone rang about eighteen times. MJ had warned him to expect this. “It’s down in the front hall,” she said. “Aunt Anna doesn’t like extension phones. And we’re usually outside in the sun, so give us some time if you call.” It’s a little late in the day for sun, Peter thought, but all the same, he let it ring. Finally someone picked up. “Hello?”

  It was Anna Watson. “Hi, Aunt Anna, it’s Peter!” he said.

  “Oh, hello, Peter! How are things? MJ’s just out of the tub; I’ll get her for you.” The phone was put down, and footsteps went off out of earshot. Faintly, voices could be heard chatting in the background, and a giggle. Peter smiled; he knew that giggle. Then more footsteps, hurried, and the phone being picked up.

  “Hi, Tiger! Oh, I miss you!”

  “I miss you, too,” Peter said. “But not for long.”

  “What?”

  “I’m being sent to Florida.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Miami.”

  “Oh, Peter!”

  He filled her in quickly on the Space Coast story, what he knew of it. Then, more quietly, he said, “They think they’ve seen the Lizard as well.”

  “Oh, no,” MJ said softly.

  Peter tried to sound lighthearted. “I don’t know that we’ll necessarily run into him. The odds—”

  “Don’t quote me odds,” his wife said, sounding resigned, but also just slightly amused. “They’re sending you down here because you’re good at getting pictures of super villains. You’ll run into him.” She sighed. “But at least you’re going to be here!”

  “We should be able to see each other most nights,” Peter said softly.

  “Ohhh…!” Her voice clearly implied what she intended for at least some of those nights. Peter shivered, just once, with anticipation: it was amazing what a little separation could do for a relationship.

  “Absolutely. But never mind that for the moment,” Peter said. “How are you getting along down there?”

  She chuckled. “Hon, this was actually a pretty good move. Remember I told you about North Beach?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, it’s even worse than I thought. You couldn’t spit on Beach Boulevard and not hit someone toting a portfolio. A lot of them are wannabes, but a lot are genuine talent. There’s plenty of work here, if you can make the right connections. And if you can cut through the talent that’s already been hired….”

  “How’s the competition?”

  Her voice sounded rueful. “Very polished. Some of these people have big careers elsewhere and are just sort of slumming for the season. Anyway, I’ve left my bio and CV and representative stills at about eighteen different agencies.”

  “There are that many of them down there?”

  “I haven’t hit all of them yet, by any means, just the biggest ones. ‘Start at the top and work down’ seems to be the best approach if I’m going to make any kind of impression with all the other talent around here.”

  “All those people ought to get out,” said Peter righteously, “and leave the field to people like you who need the money.”

  She laughed. “You tell ’em, Tiger.”

  After that there wasn’t a great deal of content to the phone call: it devolved rapidly into smoochy noises, which Peter reluctantly brought to an early conclusion. “I’ll tell you everything else tomorrow,” he said, “when we get in. I’m booked in at the Miami Hilton. But meanwhile I’ve got one more phone call to make.”

  “I think I know who,” she said, that resigned sound again. “Well, tell them I sent my best.”

  “I will. I’m just hoping he’s not in trouble of some kind.”

  MJ sounded rueful again. “I would more or less define being the Lizard as being in trouble,” she said.

  “Yeah. Listen, honey—gotta go.”

  After another five minutes of kissyface noises, Peter hung up and checked his address book for the second phone number and slowly dialed it.

  Several rings, and the phone was picked up. “Hello?”

  A boy’s voice. “William,” Peter said mock severely, “isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  “Peter! How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Is your mom around?”

  “No, she ran down to the 7-Eleven for some milk—we ran out. She’ll be back in a little while.”

  Peter thought for a moment. “Okay. I just wanted to let her know that I’m going to be coming down your way.”

  “Super!” There was a pause, and William’s voice dropped a little. “Dad’s not here,” he said sadly.

  “No, huh?”

  “He hasn’t been here for—” A pause. “Four months. Just a little more.”

  “Do you have any idea where he is?”

  “Not really. We knew he was getting ready to go away for a while—he packed a lot of stuff, and sent it away in boxes. He wouldn’t tell us what it was, or why he was sending it, or where. I got worried, Peter… I thought maybe he wasn’t going to come back at all.”

  “But he didn’t take everything, did he?”

  “No, he left a lot. But we’re not sure what that means, either. He doesn’t talk to us like he used to, Pete. Anyway, he went away. Then the last we heard from him wa
s about two months ago. He sent a postcard from somewhere down by the Everglades.” William stopped. “It wouldn’t be so bad,” he said then, “if he would write more. Sometimes I wonder if he really just wishes we weren’t here.”

  He may, Peter thought sadly, but not for the reasons you think. He felt so sorry for William: he knew what it was like to desperately want a father. His own parents had died when he was very small, leaving him to be raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Ben died shortly after Peter gained his spider-powers—a death Peter could have prevented. The guilt associated with that act haunted him to this day.

  But Peter had no idea how he would have reacted if he’d had a father who had Curt Connors’s problem. Aloud he said, “I doubt it. Anyway, as I said. I’m coming down. It’s partly about him, and partly about the Space Shuttle.”

  “What? The next launch? The one with the bees?”

  “Yup.”

  “Cool!” And for several minutes William babbled happily, for apparently he and his science class, along with science classes in several hundred other schools around the country, were involved in this bee experiment—something about finding out whether bees’ swarming and directional abilities were affected by microgravity, and how much. There was also something about honey-supported hydroponics which William carried on about so excitedly that Peter could barely follow him. If there was anything William had inherited from his father, it was his love of the sciences, and biology in particular; Curt had been as good a teacher as he had been a researcher.

  After a while, though, William trailed off, paused. “You know, though,” he said, “if it’s partly about the Lizard—you be careful, Pete. You know…”

  “I know. He’s dangerous sometimes. But I’ll have backup on this one. Spider-Man told me recently that he’s going to be heading down this way himself.”