by David Liss
The two men in front moved closer. They had cudgels, too, while Maya held the Cheyenne spear that once belonged to her father, and to his father, and his father again. It had been made in the late eighteenth century, and had been lovingly preserved. Mr. Fisk had presented it to her, and now it was the only thing she had of her family. She was always careful with it, but not so careful that she wouldn’t use it.
She had sparred with these men, and others like them, many times before, so they had nothing new to teach her. Lenny, on the left, wanted to be a mixed martial arts fighter. He had the strength and the discipline, but he was plagued with self-doubt. To her right was Amal, on the cusp of middle age but still in great shape. What the years may have taken in speed they had given in cunning.
Behind her was Netto. He was a nice guy who clearly had no wish to strike her, but Mr. Fisk had been explicit in his instructions. Do not hold back. Netto had three daughters, two of them almost ready for college. He wasn’t about to do anything that could risk his job, risk his ability to provide for his family.
Maya needed to defeat them, because that’s what Mr. Fisk wanted, yet she was determined not to hurt them. They were decent men, all of them, and if they were to hurt her by mistake—not that it was possible—they’d feel sincere regret. So she plotted the middle ground. Knock them down, disarm them, dominate them, but do it all without risking any real injury.
Amal faked a swing, and then another, and then moved in, raising his arm high. He’d done it before, and with the first feint Maya knew what was coming. Lenny had less patience with theatricals, and simply came in hard and fast. He was all bludgeon, no finesse.
She raised her spear and, as Netto struck from behind, swept Lenny’s legs out from under him, side-stepping Amal. Having already moved out of the arc of Netto’s swing, she jabbed him in the solar plexus with the butt of her spear. There was a rubber cap affixed there, which she told Mr. Fisk was to protect the aging wood. It was really intended to soften the blows she inflicted in these sessions.
Netto went down, dropping his cudgel. She kicked it out of his reach, then took a step back and did the same with Lenny’s weapon. It flew out of the ring. Amal turned to face her, and so it was one-on-one. A six-four, 240-pound slab of experienced muscle against a 22-year-old woman over whom he towered and who was half his weight. She saw it in Amal’s eyes, too. Now that it was just the two of them, he was resigned to whatever pain came his way.
* * *
WILSON Fisk stood in the shadows, near the glass window that overlooked his city. Watching the girl work, he allowed himself a smile.
She was a tool, of course, like the rest. He would use her as best suited his purposes, yet he took a particular pleasure in Maya Lopez. She’d been nothing when he found her, a wild, brutal, undisciplined victim, lost in the city’s useless system. He’d made her into not his most formidable weapon, but certainly his most interesting one.
It was the piano. That’s what had convinced him. He’d ordered one of his men to keep an eye on her after her father died. She was 14 years old, sucked into the foster system where neglect, cruelty, and apathy brought out her most brutal and dangerous impulses. Though she was only a child, Fisk did not want to take any chances. Would she discover the truth? Would she seek revenge? He had to make sure she didn’t become a problem.
His man had shown him the edited surveillance video. The girl fighting for scraps to eat, fending off the advances of her foster father, of her foster brothers, with near-lethal results. He’d also seen her tenderly speaking in sign language to another deaf girl, one less capable of defending herself from the bullies and predators all around them. There was something human still there, but those manic eyes suggested it could not survive long.
“She’s dangerous,” Fisk’s man had said. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to take her out.”
Then he’d seen her at the piano. It was a wreck, out of tune, some of the keys broken, but she’d played Chopin. The third piano sonata, a notoriously difficult piece, and—faults of the instrument aside—she played it flawlessly. More than that, there was beauty and passion in her playing. A girl who had been born deaf, who could play like a virtuoso.
“I’m her new foster parent,” he’d told his man. “Make the arrangements.”
It took less than a week.
Away from the constant torment and fear, and finally given the space to grieve for her father, Maya had blossomed. She was more amazing than he could have imagined. How had she learned to play the piano? She’d seen a musician on the television play. Once. That was all it took. She could mirror any movement she saw.
She was among his most treasured creations. He still had no idea how he would use her, but her potential, and her loyalty, were bottomless.
He watched as his three men picked themselves up. They were bruised but not seriously hurt. The girl showed reluctance to actually hurt anyone. That could be a problem. He’d have to find a way to encourage a more ruthless approach. Until she proved she was ready, he couldn’t risk revealing to her the full scope of his business.
“Again,” he told them. “Netto, I didn’t see you holding back, did I?”
“No way, boss.” The man shook his shaved head. “You said no holds barred, and that’s how we’re playing it.”
Fisk doubted it. The men loved her. They treated her like a kid sister. It might be best to bring in people who didn’t know her for these fights, but then he might lose quality. For now, it was enough to let them know he was watching. They might not want to hurt her, but they’d want to cross Fisk even less.
“You mustn’t restrain yourself with them either,” he told Maya, when he knew he had eye contact with her. “They know as well as you that in life there is no escape from a checkmate.”
She nodded, and the next round began. Fisk was convinced Maya could have dropped the three of them in less than thirty seconds, yet she was taking about two minutes per fight. Part of it was because she liked to control the pace. He understood that. But it was also to spare them the humiliation, and so she set up her blows to avoid doing any serious harm.
So strong in some ways, yet still plagued by sentimental weakness.
Hoang, his third-shift secretary, entered the gym, striding purposefully as though he weren’t terrified. Never a good sign. No one liked to deliver bad news to a boss—and to this boss in particular.
“What is it?” Fisk demanded.
Hoang took an instant to plant himself, and then delivered the news with his best business-school efficiency.
“Damn it!” Fisk roared. He raised his fist and cocked back. Then Hoang trembled before him. If he delivered the blow, it would kill the secretary—but Fisk was learning to control his temper. It was something he had to accomplish if he was going to convince the world that he was a different sort of man. For his plans to work, he could never slip up in public, and the first step to not slipping in public was to not slip in private. He needed to be strong enough to withhold his strength.
He lowered his arm. “I’ll deal with it,” he told Hoang, waving the man away. Did Hoang know how close he’d come? The old Fisk wouldn’t have hesitated, but the new Fisk had a media image to maintain. Rumors of workplace brutality weren’t going to do him any good. His place in the world had changed.
He returned his gaze to the sparring ring. Amal and Lenny were down, but Netto was still on his feet. He was standing directly behind Maya, who had watched the exchange with Hoang.
Instantly Fisk locked eyes with Netto, who knew what he’d done. Terror appeared in his eyes.
“Boss,” he said. He backed up, holding his hands palms-out, as if that would help him.
“What did I tell you?” Fisk said, approaching like an angered bull. “You do not hold back.” Netto continued to back away, stumbled, and fell on his ass.
“She got distracted,” Netto protested. “I’m not going to hit a deaf—”
That was as far as he got. Fisk raised one of his enormous feet and
brought it down on Netto’s knee. The cracking sound reverberated across the gym, and then the screaming.
* * *
THAT’S who he is, Maya told herself, but he’s getting better. For a moment she thought Mr. Fisk would keep stomping, and maybe there was a time when he would have, but he had himself under control now. He was learning to be a better person. So much anger, yet he does so many good things.
Poor Netto. He would be out for weeks, maybe longer. He might never be able to spar again. Mr. Fisk would take care of him, though. He was good about that sort of thing. Netto’s daughters would never know how close they had come to losing their father, but they hadn’t lost him. They hadn’t gone through what Maya had. They’d been spared.
Once she thought about it that way, she decided she would never think about it again. She would lock it away with all the other things best not remembered.
What did Mr. Hoang tell him? What had upset Mr. Fisk?
Sometimes he confided in her. Sometimes he didn’t. Maya didn’t like to be left out—she would never betray Mr. Fisk’s trust in her. At the same time, she didn’t think she could be of use to him if he kept her in the dark about so many things. Mr. Fisk was all about compartmentalizing. He was ruthless in business, tender with his wife, indifferent to the suffering of competitors, generous with strangers. He would do anything for Maya and yet, with someone like Netto, who had been a loyal employee for years—
But no. That was something she had decided to put away. Returning to her suite in Fisk Tower, she went into the bathroom and reached into the shower stall to start the water, but then curiosity got the better of her. She could shower later.
Maya woke up her laptop and let her fingers dance over the keys, digging up the hidden program and entering the string of passwords. Then the feeds were live.
She admitted to herself that it was wrong to spy on Mr. Fisk, the man who had rescued her, who had given her everything. She told herself she only wanted information, so she could be of better use to Mr. Fisk. Also, she was just plain curious. Why did he hide so much from her? Did he think she wasn’t ready? She knew he had a dark side. She knew he would blur the line between right and wrong in order to serve the greater good. She could help him if he would let her.
Maya could help him make better choices.
She was sure of it.
There were three cameras hidden in Mr. Fisk’s office, but the feed had its limits—the angles could be tricky, and that meant she couldn’t always read lips. She had an idea of adding a hidden microphone and connecting it to voice-recognition software. Yet more technology meant more risk, and she hated to think what would happen if Mr. Fisk found out about her surveillance.
He was alone there now, sitting, holding a glass of water in one hand, looking at a video feed on his own computer. Maya was able to zoom in to get a better view of what had his attention. It looked like surveillance footage. Filtered through her own camera, the feed was fuzzy at best, and it took Maya a moment to sort it out.
It looked like the roof of a construction site. Two figures were fighting, but this wasn’t normal fighting. They were leaping in the air, spinning, covering impossible distances. One of the figures was dressed all in black. The other…
The other was the man who had murdered her father.
SHE barged in without knocking.
Still sweaty from her sparring, and still wearing her athletic clothes, Maya looked out of place in his large and cheerless office. Most likely she wanted to talk about what he’d done to that fool who couldn’t follow orders. The girl was too soft-hearted. She wasn’t ruthless in the way he needed her to be. There was still time to mold her, though. He felt certain she would become what he needed.
Fisk reached to turn off the video feed, but it was too late. She had already seen it. The expression on her face told him all he needed to know.
“What is that?”
“I’ve asked you to knock,” he said.
She was kind-hearted, but not soft. She deflected his deflection without missing a beat. Moving around to the side of the desk—as if this was her space as much as his—she gestured toward the video screen.
“Is this what Mr. Hoang came in to tell you about?”
“It’s not important.” Fisk switched off the monitor and turned to see if she would defy him.
“It’s important to me,” Maya insisted. She pointed an accusing finger at the now blank video screen. “That… that thing killed my father.”
“And we will bring Spider-Man to justice,” Fisk said. “I’ve promised you that, but we must wait for the right time. With everything we have in play, an all-out battle with a costumed vigilante isn’t in our best interests. Once we’ve achieved our goals, when we have the power and influence to do as we please, then we will crush him. I’ve given you my word, and I intend to keep it.”
“Who was he fighting?” Maya demanded. “That man in black moved just like him.”
Even recalling her uncanny powers of observation, he was surprised that she had seen so much, so quickly. She could recall anything she’d even glimpsed, recreate any image in the smallest detail, but this was something new. Perhaps for her a fleeting image was like a photograph that could be studied from every angle. Was her mind truly so acute?
Fisk sighed inwardly. This wasn’t something that should involve her. He wanted her to remain passionate in her hatred of Spider-Man, but sometimes that passion, that single-minded focus, became more a burden than an advantage. Yet boxing her out at this point would do more harm than good.
“Close the door and have a seat,” he told her. “I’ll tell you everything.”
* * *
HER gambit worked.
She worried that she’d let slip too much, but Mr. Fisk seemed not to notice. He regarded her ability to observe and remember and mimic as a kind of magic, and anything she did with those tools seemed possible.
Once she sat, Mr. Fisk pressed a button to turn on the monitor. He hit a few keys and began the feed from the beginning. Maya watched intently, learning, remembering. She was only vaguely aware of how the air felt cool against her damp skin. When it was done, she turned to him again.
“Spider-Man is a problem that is not going to go away,” he said, “until we make him go away.”
“And I will be part of that,” she said. “You told me so.”
“You will be,” he assured her. “After what he did to your father, you know I would never take any final action without your involvement. We will expose his crimes and we will see him punished—but at the right time.”
“Then who is that man in the feed?” she asked. “He moves just like Spider-Man.”
Though she didn’t say it aloud, Maya knew that she could move just like Spider-Man as well. She couldn’t cling to walls, and she couldn’t shoot webs, but she could match him blow for blow, punch for punch. When the time came to face her enemy, he would not be able to touch her—but she could touch him. She had watched every clip of him she could find, and knew his fighting style better than he did.
It was at the level of instinct now.
“The man in black is someone I’ve found, someone I’ve trained to match Spider-Man,” Mr. Fisk said.
“I’ve trained to match him,” Maya countered.
“Indeed, your abilities inspired me to pursue this approach, but I don’t want you exposed. Especially not now, when I need you by my side. This… contractor will absorb all of Spider-Man’s attention, while we focus our efforts in other areas.”
“How did you train him to leap like that?” Maya asked. “His abilities—”
“I have many interests, many investments, some in countries with more relaxed laws concerning medical experimentation,” he said, interrupting her. “I would never allow you to be subjected to the same processes, Maya. You are important to me. This man is nothing—a tool to be used and, if need be, used up.”
She steadied her dark eyes on him.
“What is his name?”
&n
bsp; Mr. Fisk sighed. “I would refuse to tell you, but if you want to know, you’ll find out. Your tenacity can be a trial, though it’s what makes you so valuable. The man’s name is Michael Bingham.” He gestured toward the computer. “If I agree to send you a redacted file on him, will you let the matter drop?”
Maya gave this some thought, and nodded her head. She didn’t know if she meant it, though. At that moment, she would have said anything to learn more.
“I’ll email you the documents tonight,” he said. “In exchange, I want you to keep away from him. He is dangerous. From what I know, he was never quite stable, but the training he underwent has further unbalanced him.”
“Of course,” she said. Let the record show, she thought, that I haven’t actually agreed to anything.
“Until we achieve our goals, Spider-Man is Bingham’s problem, not yours.”
Maya nodded. She rose from her seat and moved to open the door, but first she turned back to her mentor.
“When Mr. Hoang brought you the news about this, why were you so upset?”
His mouth twitched in that way that said he was trying to hold his temper.
“Mr. Hoang brought me news about something else.” She started to speak, and he held up a hand to stop her. “An import agreement with the Russians. Nothing you need concern yourself with.”
He was lying. When she’d checked on him, just minutes after they left the gym, he’d been reviewing the video—not grappling with oligarchs. Bingham might be a solution, but he was also a problem. That much was clear.
Maya would review the documents when she received them, and then she’d decide her next move. Despite her loyalty, nothing was off the table—not where Spider-Man was concerned.
