by Diane Duane
Spider-Man was of two opinions whether or not to breathe, since plutonium is about the most toxic thing on the planet. But by this time the creature had put that whole first lump of fissile into its gut, and was hooking the other piece out of the lead and steel capsule. And he didn't feel any warning from his spider-sense.
"No!" Hobby screamed, staggering across the room toward the creature, "don't, you dumb—"
Spider-Man never found out how Hobby intended to describe the creature, for several tentacles promptly came out and backhanded Hobby halfway across the room again. The creature was oblivious: it took bite after bite out of the second dark, shining hemisphere. In a matter of seconds that too was gone.
"No!" Hobby moaned, struggling to his feet again, fumbling for something, anything, another pumpkin bomb perhaps. "You lousy little—you ruined my—I'll—"
"No, I don't think so," Spider-Man said calmly, and going over to Hobgoblin, he reared back and awarded him a roundhouse punch in the jaw that sent him flying as far as the creature's tentacle-whack had.
Hobby didn't move again. Spider-Man strolled over to him, took a good look to make sure he was breathing, saw that he was, then webbed him up and hung him from what remained of the ceiling. With that out of the way, he turned to see that the creature, finished eating, was now holding still. It had slumped into a tired-looking puddle of tentacles on the floor, bowed over, like someone overstuffed after a very good meal.
Spider-Man looked past it at Venom. The symbiote looked furious and a little ragged around the edges. The big eyes glared, though.
"How long did it take you to catch him?" Spider-Man said.
"We would estimate," said Venom, looking at the creature sprawled on the floor, "probably about the same time it took you to catch that. He led us a merry chase. He is rather too maneuverable when airborne."
"But he came back here at last," said Spider-Man.
"Oh yes. Home is where the heart is, they say." And Venom looked at the wrecked bomb. "His plan, we're sure, was to lead us as far from here as possible, then to return and wait for his ransom—or do something worse. Who knows what spite lurks in that black heart? We have no desire to."
The creature stirred a little at their feet, and moaned. "So," Venom said softly. "Now it only remains what to do with you."
"I think so, yeah," Spider-Man said, thinking, I'm in no shape for this. But Venom is still a fugitive and a killer, and I've let this go too long as it is. He began to edge sideways.
"This is the time, we think," Venom said, "for the settling of old debts. Once and for all, the scores tallied, the books closed, with one gross inequity resolved."
Venom's tendrils lanced out at Spider-Man. He webbed a couple of them as quickly as he could, struck a few aside with fists and feet, and leapt sideways as Venom leapt after.
From behind them both, the moaning sounded again. There was something more urgent about it this time, though, and even Venom stopped to look. "What?" he breathed.
Spider-Man followed Venom's gaze to the creature. Still slumped among its tentacles, which were now stirring and twitching feebly around it, the creature lay—but there was considerably more of it than there had been.
"It's bigger—" Venom said.
"It was bigger before," Spider-Man said. His spider-sense began to tingle. "It's worse now. I think we need to be a little worried about this—"
"Agreed," Venom said, and Spider-Man heard the alarm in his voice too.
The whole creature twitched, and, there was simply no other word for it, surged. It was as if its physical structure had suddenly become debatable. Shell changes, Spider-Man thought. The atoms of its own structure suddenly in flux. Energy levels renegotiating themselves—shifting into new patterns—shorter-lived—less stable—
It surged again. Suddenly it was twice as big as it had been. And another surge, like another breath, and it tripled in size. Venom stared.
And Spider-Man cried out, "Get down! Get down!" He flung himself at Venom. The impetus of his tackle hurled them both to the floor just behind one of the big half-smashed pieces of machinery. Hobby! Spider-Man thought, but there was no time. The creature surged one last time—
—and blew.
How long the rumbling and roaring went on, he wasn't sure. Spider-Man had heard a fair number of explosions in his career, some of them at a safe distance, some from entirely too close up. This one unquestionably fell into the latter category. He wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't been unconscious for some seconds in the wake of the initial blast, and the ensuing commotion was so unbelievable that Spider-Man wasn't sure that his protesting brain hadn't simply gone on strike until the noise dropped to a level he could handle.
The problem, of course, was that above ground, an explosion had freedom to move through the air and dispel its force upward. Down here, confined on all sides, the experience was much like being inside a bomb's casing when the explosive detonated. Anything weak enough to be demolished was demolished. Anything with any ability to resist the explosion nonetheless had to do something with the huge energy imparted to it, and most of the surfaces in here gave it up as sound, resonating to destruction—ringing like terrible crumbling bells, the walls falling down as they shook themselves to pieces in the aftermath, their reinforcing metal rods letting off prolonged howls like giant guitar strings suffering from terminal feedback. It was a long while before the noise faded to the point where one was conscious of anything but wanting it to stop.
It was almost totally dark, then. Paradoxically, the only light came from a small source which had been attached to the bomb—probably a battery backup of some kind, Spider-Man thought. By the glow of a few red and white status lights, burning stubbornly over switches which no longer worked, Spider-Man levered himself up on his elbows and looked around. Not too far away, a dark form moved feebly again: Venom. Many of the symbiote's tendrils were caught in mid-extension by the blast, but most particularly by the noise. Sound was one of the symbiote's weak points, and now all those usually fearfully active tentacles lay pitifully flat and still on the floor, as if they had been through a wringer. Still, Venom's breathing seemed steady enough. He would recover.
Spidey looked behind him, then, and saw that Hobgoblin lay on the floor, moaning. I'm glad I webbed his mouth up, Spider-Man thought, sitting up with a groan and dusting himself off. The last thing I could cope with now would be him going on about his stupid bomb.
In the rubble, something else stirred: a quick rustle, quickly gone, and a squeaking noise. Rats, Spidey thought, and actually laughed. After what he had been dealing with until now, a rat or two was no big deal. But I bet they're wondering what the heck happened to their quiet home.
More subdued squeaking followed, and more sounds of movement, but closer. Spider-Man turned. "Venom," he said. "You okay?" Though why I'm asking, I don't know. He'll be a lot easier to deal with in this state, anyhow.
"Nnnnngh." The dark shape stirred, hunched itself slowly up into a sitting position. "We . . . are still in one piece. Figuratively speaking, that is . . ."
"Uh, good." The squeaking was getting louder. "Listen," Spider-Man said, "I think it might be a good idea if we took Hobgoblin and got out of here. I don't know what the structural damage is, but I'd hate to have a building fall down into this hole, now that this is a hole. That is, mo— Yikes!"
His spider-sense buzzed just as something was about to run across his leg. He jumped and slapped at it.
"Heel, boy!" he said, and started to scramble to his feet, but before he had a chance, something else ran across his leg, into his lap. He slapped at that too. Then another tried to attack.
He jumped away, guided by his spider-sense to a clear spot in the scattered rubble. The small dark things followed. They were not rats, he knew. No rat alive could jump like that—and even as Spider-Man leapt away, several of them leapt at him. They were small dark creatures—
—with tentacles! Twenty or thirty of them. Bipedal, but not very humanoid-looking
as yet, as far as he could see them in the light from the former bomb's telltales. They were little things, maybe about the size of chihuahuas. Shining black, fanged, clawed, squeaking frenziedly—in a tinier, shriller version of their parent's soprano shriek— they went plunging and leaping after Spider-Man, hungry, wanting their first meal.
For a few seconds Spider-Man was lost in a basic and for him slightly ironic response: hatred of swarming things that came at you like bugs, biting, too numerous to stop. They were all over him now, biting, clinging with tentacles, ripping with claws, scrabbling at his midsection. There were only so many he could avoid in his fatigue, even with his spider-sense. The sound of Venom's laughter, still weak but slightly sinister, didn't help at all. Spider-Man jumped and danced and clawed them off", then started webbing them up as fast as he could. But still they kept coming. The floor seethed like an anthill with hungry alien life, newborn, wanting its first meal more than anything.
He jumped to what was left of one wall, but it was no refuge—they fastened themselves to him and clawed and bit all the harder, shrieking with hunger and frustration as he shook some off, webbed others and dropped them in a package, jumped again to another wall, was followed and bitten once more. Well, he thought frantically, MJ did suggest that feeding it might be a dumb idea. After this I'll listen to her.
Feeding it—oh my gosh!!
He stopped what he was doing and fumbled at his belt. The creatures there bit his hands and arms, protesting; others, encouraged by not being shaken off him, now concentrated there as well. Their little fangs and claws were like razors. He wanted to scream, but Spider-Man concentrated on getting the webbing loose from the canister still at his belt. Revolted at the feeling of them crawling over him, shrieking and biting anything they could reach, Spider-Man flung the canister as far out into the middle of the chamber, or what had been its middle, as he could.
There was a sort of depression in the floor there, a crater blown in the solid concrete by the creature when it detonated. The canister bounced into it. The little creatures stormed into the depression in a black wave, scrabbling, tearing at each other, completely hiding the canister now in a tumble and fury of little black bodies. Hundreds of tiny shrieks filled the air.
Spider-Man brushed off a last couple of confused baby aliens, possibly clinging to him because of residual radiation from when he had been holding the canister in the open position, and watched them fall toward their ravenous brethren. There was already less noise, and Spider-Man suspected it wasn't because they had gotten the canister open—which they had—-but because some of them, desperate, had begun feeding on their brothers and sisters. Probably some residual fissile material left over in their structure from their parent, he thought. It might not have managed to metabolize it all before it went blooey. Or who knows what? He was reminded, slightly sadly, of the sight of some kinds of spider hatching out; an egg-case suddenly releasing hundreds of baby spiders no bigger than a pinhead, only a few of which survive—those fast enough to spin some silk and float away before their brothers and sisters have them for breakfast.
He swung down near the hole in the floor and sprayed a bowl-shape from his webbing, then shot a line of web down into the depression and pulled the halves of the canister up. The young aliens followed—those which hadn't already disappeared into their siblings' gullets. Spider-Man dropped the canister pieces into the middle of his webbed bowl, and the little creatures piled on top of it. When they were all in one place, he used more webbing to cover the bowl, turning it into a tight-woven bag that would hold them all in one place until he could get help.
That left one more problem. Spider-Man turned to face Venom.
Except that the symbiote wasn't there.
Spider-Man blinked. "Venom?"
There was no sign of him. Spider-Man looked around, but it was not in Venom's style to hide behind something, in circumstances like this, and then jump out without warning. He had a bit too much love of the open challenge, the threat that gave you time to realize what he planned to do with you. He was gone.
Well, he thought, Brock and I will have our reckoning. Right now, I've got Hobby and a bunch of baby aliens I have to get off my back.
He picked up the webbed-up Hobgoblin under one arm. Hobby immediately began making strangled noises of rage. "Oh, put a sock in it," Spider-Man said genially. "You're going for a nice trip to the country. People pay to do that in this weather, and you're going to get to do it for free. What're you complaining about? There's just no pleasing some people."
He then picked up the bag of aliens, threw it over his shoulder, and began making his way back up to the surface, feeling like a slightly retro and downmarket Santa Claus, one who comes up from the cellar rather than down through the chimney. Soon enough he found himself in one of the subway tunnels. There were, for once, no trains in sight. Spider-Man walked to the next platform, climbed up its steps, and went out past the token booth, waving at the astonished man who sat there. "Ho ho ho," Spider-Man said cheerfully, heading up the stairs and into the beginnings of dawn.
There was enough light on the streets for things to start being active, and sure enough, with no news to the contrary, New York had started about its business as if there were no bomb theoretically about to go off. Milk and laundry trucks were buzzing around, the traffic was beginning to build up, the morning papers already lay in bundles by the news stands, and were being stacked up on the counters. "THE BIG BANG!" shouted the Bugle's front page, with one of Peter's pictures of Hobgoblin, looking suitably insane and menacing, prominently displayed.
Spider-Man was pleased, and even more pleased by the present contents of his camera, which he had picked up on his way out—assuming the flash and the motion-control system had once more worked properly. Can't assume, though, he thought. The circumstances were different, and with all those flash bombs going off . . . . Oh well.
He dropped Hobby to the sidewalk and stopped by a pay phone. Hobby made angry but muffled complaints. "Well," Spider-Man said equably as he dialed 911, "if you wouldn't threaten to blow the city up, you wouldn't get dropped on your head. Now shut up. Hello? Oh."
Spider-Man found himself listening to the recording that you get when the 911 system is overloaded. Probably half the city is calling the cops demanding to know what they're doing about the bomb. Or alternately, he thought, and grinned, looking at a bank's digital clock down the street, why the bomb hasn't gone off when it was supposed to. It was quarter of six. He chuckled. Some people would complain about a hoax, and the distress it had caused them, how shameful it was, the city ought to do something . . . and on and on. It was true enough: there was no pleasing everybody.
"Nine one one, can I help you?" said a weary, inexpressibly bored voice.
"Yeah, this is Spider-Man—"
"Oh?" The cop on the other end sounded skeptical, but said nothing to refute him.
"Listen, I'm at the corner of—" he craned his neck to look at the street sign "—Eighth Avenue and Thirty-Third. I've got Hobgoblin here, all wrapped ready for pickup, and also a bunch of little alien critters that we're gonna have to do something with pretty quick—"
"Wait a minute, Spider-Man," said the cop, suddenly sounding a lot less skeptical. Then again, "I've got Hobgoblin" were probably the words they most wanted to hear right now. "Bernie? Hand me that sheet there, will you? Thanks. Right. Spider-Man, there's a mobile patrol from SHIELD out looking for you at the moment. I'll call their beeper and give them your location. They should be there pretty fast. They've been working the west side for the past couple of hours."
"Hey, that's great."
"Meanwhile, Eighth and Thirty-third? We'll send a wagon for Hobgoblin. What happened to his bomb?"
"It was delicious," Spider-Man said.
The cop sounded slightly dubious. "Does that mean it's defused?"
"Defused, destroyed, the fissile material inactivated. If you'll give me the number of the AEC people out on the street, I'll call them and give them th
e details."
"Right." More paper rustling. "Ready?" The cop rattled the number off.
"Got it," Spider-Man said. "Thanks. Hey, here comes the cavalry already." For down the street he could hear, faintly, the scream of sirens as the first of several police cars turned into Eighth and roared toward him.
"We aim to please," said the cop on the other end. "Have a nice day." He hung up.
The police cars came howling to a stop all around Spider-Man, and cops piled out, looking delighted to see Spider-Man and to have their hands on the man who had held their city for ransom for the last twelve hours. The police officers who took custody of Hobby had numerous unkind names for him, but one big handsome dark lady simply shook her head and said, "Unrealistic."
"What do you mean?" Spidey asked, surprised.
"This boy," she said, looking at Hobgoblin as they manhandled him away and put him into the newly arrived high security van, "he has no grasp of the economic realities. With the city budget in the state it's in, where did he think we were going to get a billion dollars?"
"You mean," Spider-Man said, "the city wasn't going to pay?"
The police woman looked at him mildly. "What were they going to pay with? Now, I hear there were some pretty noisy phone calls from Gracie Mansion to Washington, at about three this morning. Oh, I guess they would have sorted something out in a while. But this boy—" She looked at the van's doors as they clanged shut "—he was just too greedy. A million, the city would have given him to get off their case, I bet. Even a hundred million if the feds or Trump or Stark or someone got involved. But a billion? No way." She sighed. "But I guess times change. Maybe a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to."
Another van pulled up, this one more sleek and streamlined-looking than the police van, with the logo of the Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage, and Logistics Directorate, one of the country's premiere military intelligence organizations, painted on the side. Uniformed men stepped out, holding futuristic-looking scientific instruments and futuristic-looking guns, which they pointed at the web-bag lying on the sidewalk. The bag heaved and squirmed, and loud squeaks rose from it.
