by David Liss
“Perfectly,” MJ said, meeting his eye. She understood the rules of the game, but she wasn’t going to let herself be intimidated.
He smiled, and she relaxed a bit.
“Do what we hire you to do, do it well, and you will rise through the ranks. The best always do.” He handed her the marked-up story. “You’re not the best, Miss Watson, but you’re very good, and I expect you to get better. There’s no reason you can’t be the best, eventually, but you have to put in the time and the work and pay the dues.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, rising to stand in front of him. “Thank you, sir.”
“Robbie, unless I’m mad at you,” he said, “which I am not… currently. Now read my notes, learn from what’s helpful and ignore them where I’m wrong. Be here at eight o’clock tomorrow, check in with my secretary, and please close the door on your way out.”
MJ smiled, clutched the printout, and left.
She’d done it. She’d landed the job.
It wasn’t exactly the job she wanted, but she was on her way. And she completely understood Mr. Robertson… Robbie’s point about needing her to do features. That was why she’d been hired, and she’d do what she was hired to do. She would do it well.
As for what she did in her own time…
* * *
BETTY Brant poked her head into Robbie Robertson’s office.
“I have a good feeling about her,” she said.
“She’s going to be a pain in my ass,” he said. Then he flashed a grin. “So, yeah, me too.”
SHE’D been there since just before sundown, binoculars around her neck, dressed to be ready for anything—black exercise leggings and a long-sleeved spandex top. The leather parkour gloves exposed her fingers, allowing for precision, but protected her palms from rough or jagged surfaces.
While preparing herself, Maya had been thinking about her dreams. In them, she bore the handprint on her face. Perhaps it could become a trademark—her trademark, like her hated foe’s spider symbol, black on his chest. She’d dismissed the idea, yet she couldn’t let go of it altogether.
She had a bag of raw cashews, in case she needed a quick high-protein snack, and two bottles of water because dehydration made her sleepy. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down. Not with this guy.
The skyline loomed in the background as she trained her binoculars on the apartment window. The file Fisk had given her had been more than a little redacted. It contained Bingham’s name, his nearest living relatives, where he’d gone to school, and little else. Even his address had been excised.
Fortunately, Maya knew her way around the system. Fishing for more information was a good way to be found out, but locating an original version of a redacted document was fairly easy, and likely to go unnoticed. The unexpurgated version hadn’t told her much more, though.
In the two hours she’d been camped out, she’d caught a couple of glimpses of him, but nothing of substance. Maybe what she was doing was absurd. Mr. Fisk had asked her to leave it alone, and so she ought to do as he asked. He had his flaws—she knew that—but she trusted him to act in her best interests. He might try to conceal things from her, but he would never do anything that might harm her.
Still, why did he need someone else who could move like Spider-Man? Did he not trust her to do what needed to be done? Did he think she would be unwilling to do what he required her to do?
Sometimes Mr. Fisk hurt people. She’d visited Netto in the hospital just that afternoon, and it had served as an unwelcome reminder of his temper. Despite his own tendencies, however, Mr. Fisk had never asked her to hurt anyone.
Then why all the training?
Did he think she wasn’t ready?
Life wasn’t black and white. It was gray, and she had faith—absolute faith—that if Mr. Fisk wanted someone to be hurt, they needed to be hurt. Because she knew that, she could be the right hand he needed her to be. All she had to do was show him how far she was willing to go to further his cause.
Yes, his methods could be brutal, but this was a brutal world. Maya knew that more than anyone, and Mr. Fisk was making the city better, more prosperous, more livable for everyone—not just the rich and the privileged. It was a mission worth pursuing. It wasn’t simply good, it was just, and Maya was prepared to do what was needed for the cause.
If hurting Spider-Man was part of the package, then that was just a bonus.
Mr. Fisk often said that he thought Maya could do anything, that he never factored in her deafness when considering her potential. Yet here she was, on the sidelines, while some stranger was doing what ought to be her job. Not only doing it, but doing it in a way that somehow infuriated Mr. Fisk.
Why would he allow that?
She would find out what this man was up to, and she would show Mr. Fisk that there was nothing he couldn’t trust her to do for him. She would show him that whatever this Bingham person could do, she could do it better.
* * *
AN hour later, Bingham climbed out his window. Wearing a Spider-Man suit.
It was a good one, too. Thanks to her Oscorp military-grade binoculars, it was as if she was standing two feet in front of him. The suit looked real—like a second skin, the way the real Web-Slinger’s suit looked. The colors were right, but there were a few imperfections. The web lines were a little too close together, though she doubted anyone without her skills would notice.
Spider-Man himself probably couldn’t tell the difference.
So why hadn’t Bingham worn this suit during the fight at the construction site? What was he up to now? She watched as he leapt off the fire escape, shot off a strand of some sort and swung off into the night.
Well, there’s only one way to find out…
She set the binoculars down, broke into a run, and leapt to the adjacent roof.
* * *
IT wasn’t easy keeping up with him. Bingham moved fast—faster than she could, though if she’d had access to web shooters, they’d have been on more even ground. She tried not to think about that. Mr. Fisk had access to web-shooting technology, and he’d given it to Bingham.
Not to her.
This isn’t the time for that, she thought. Her focus had to be on following Bingham. Besides, it was better when her doubts shut down, and she could live in the burn of her muscles. This was going to take everything she had.
New York did not provide a continuous supply of level roofs, which meant tailing a guy who could swing from building to building presented challenges. Maya leapt from the top of a building to a fire escape, scrambled up to another roof, dashed across the top, and hurled herself to grab onto a drainage pipe, barely taking the time to hope it was properly affixed. She bounded over air-conditioning units and crumbling brick walls. She clambered up a wall using windowsills and missing bricks as handholds.
Fortunately, he didn’t go far. There was a side street with an Italian wine bar that offered outdoor seating. Bingham clung to a wall—something else she couldn’t do—and watched, as Maya crouched in the shadows. Nothing much happened until a panhandler came by, asking the upscale wine bar patrons for a handout.
Bingham leapt into action. He swung down and pointed his web shooters at the panhandler. With a thwap the man was hurled across the street and webbed against the side of a building. Patrons screamed in horror and surprise. One indignant woman began to shout at Bingham to stop assaulting the poor man. He didn’t pause, though. Without a word he jumped upward, webbing his way into the night.
Instantly Maya was on her feet, intent on keeping up. She had to see what came next.
* * *
YET that was it. Bingham went back to his apartment, entering the way he’d gone out, through the fire-escape window.
What’s his game?
What could he hope to accomplish?
Bullying some homeless guy wasn’t exactly going to bring Spider-Man to his knees. A handful of people might decide that he wasn’t the hero they thought he was. The story might make the newspapers,
though that was less likely now that J. Jonah Jameson wasn’t at the Bugle. He’d been the one journalist willing to call Spider-Man out.
So, if it hadn’t been about dealing a blow to Spider-Man’s reputation, what had been the point? Was it the panhandler himself? Unlikely. If those webs were like the real thing, they’d dissolve soon enough. Otherwise the cops would cut him down.
Whatever this was—a trial run, an equipment test—it couldn’t be an endgame. And that meant the real plot was yet to come.
* * *
MAYA had two options—stealth, or the direct approach.
She’d already collected a lot of information. More than likely, she ought to go home, do a little more digging around, perhaps even confront Mr. Fisk with what she’d learned. He might be impressed with her tenacity, her ability to keep up with a man who possessed superior abilities or technology, or both. Yes, the best thing to do would be to call it a night.
Forget that.
If she opted for stealth, she could try sneaking into Bingham’s apartment. That didn’t seem viable, though. A pizza delivery guy had arrived shortly after he’d returned, and that suggested a night in. Besides, while Maya didn’t like to limit herself, and she believed she could do anything a person with hearing could do, she wasn’t unrealistic. No, breaking into a man’s apartment while he was home would be foolish.
That left the direct approach.
IT was a truth universally acknowledged that a man with pizza would want something to drink. She knocked on his front door holding a six-pack of SwillCo cola.
He came to the door wearing a tank top and sweatpants. He wasn’t a huge guy, but he was wiry and covered with a defined layer of muscle. He had a low forehead with thick eyebrows that came dangerously close to touching, a wide nose that had clearly been broken more than a few times, and thin bloodless lips.
It was the eyes that struck her most, though. They were pale blue, and small and strangely cloudy. As if he was thinking about something else, even while trying to process the meaning of the beverage-laden stranger at his door.
Maya gave him her best smile. She wasn’t exactly dressed to impress, and she hated—absolutely hated—using her looks to sway men. On the other hand, there was nothing wrong with being friendly.
“I thought you could use a drink to go with that pizza.”
He squinted at her, and looked as if his mind was a thousand miles away.
“You a neighbor or something?” He stuck his head out of the door and looked around. “I don’t like neighbors. I don’t like nosey neighbors especially.”
“I’m not a neighbor,” Maya said, keeping the smile going but thinking this might have been a really bad idea. Still, she’d started it, so she might as well go for broke. “I’m just a person who thought you might have worked up a big thirst swinging around the city.”
There was a blur of movement, the bags clamored to the floor, and she was inside Bingham’s apartment. Her arm hurt. She was backed against a wall—he had grabbed her, lashed out like a viper, and pulled her inside. One of the soda cans had cracked open and its hissing contents pooled on the floor.
Bingham slammed the door shut and spun to face her. His eyes were no longer cloudy, no longer distant.
“Who sent you?” he demanded, moving closer.
Maya was in her element. She’d seen him fight—on the video-camera feed. It hadn’t been much, but it had been enough. He swung at her, hurling a fist like a barroom brawler, but connected only with air. As he turned she was in his blind spot, behind him, dealing a sharp blow to his kidneys. He let out a hissing breath and staggered forward.
Maya took a step back and held up her hands.
“I just brought drinks,” she said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Then she looked around. There was something weird about this apartment. There was no real furniture—just some plastic folding chairs and a table. The pizza box was propped on one of the chairs. No television, no books or magazines. Nothing to keep him busy except clear plastic stacking boxes, and they held very peculiar things.
A container of paper clips, another of rubber bands, a third of unused hotel soap bars. And those were the less disturbing ones. There were containers of dirt, of frayed shoelaces, of crumpled balls of tissue. There were jars, too. Some of them contained liquid of various shades of yellow. Maya didn’t want to think about those. Another contained what had to be hundreds of dead cockroaches.
Under no circumstances did she want to be in an enclosed space with a cockroach collector.
Without saying a word he came at her again, fast and deadly. Like her father’s killer, he had incredible skills, but he fought much more conventionally. He lashed out with a fist. She made as if to return the punch, but stepped back instead. She wasn’t there to prove herself. She wasn’t there to beat him. She wanted information. If she damaged him, it might make Mr. Fisk very, very angry with her.
“Stop. We’re on the same side,” she said. “I work for Mr. Fisk. Just like you.” Bingham took another swing at her but caught only air. He then stopped.
And laughed.
“How do you do that?” he asked, his body language a little more relaxed.
“I’m fast,” she said. “We’re both fast, right?” She wasn’t nearly as fast as he was, but she could fight a whole lot smarter than this guy. If she had access to his technology, to his “training”—whatever that had been—she could only imagine the things she could accomplish. Avenging her father was at the top of the list. Making Spider-Man pay was the first thing she would do, but after that—she could be whatever Mr. Fisk needed her to be.
He stood and lowered his hands, keeping them clenched into fists, she observed.
“Who are you again?” Bingham asked. The fight over, he turned to grab a slice from the box of pizza. He took a long time choosing his piece, then he snapped around, grinning at her.
“You want one?”
“No thanks.” She couldn’t imagine eating food that had spent any time in this apartment.
He turned to study the fallen beverages. This seemed to occupy him for some time. Maybe he wasn’t as bright as she’d thought. After a moment, he grabbed a can of soda.
“Something to drink?” he said, grinning again.
“I’m good,” she said. “Just want to talk.”
“You can’t hear anything.” He smiled broadly. “You’re a deafie! You’ve been watching my lips.”
Then it struck her. He’d asked her the same questions—about the pizza and the drinks—when he’d had his back to her, and she hadn’t known. Maya didn’t make a point of hiding the fact that she was deaf. Let people make of it what they would. If they wanted to underestimate her, they did so at their own peril. Still, she felt as if she’d given up a weakness he could exploit.
“How come you don’t have that deaf-person voice?” he asked earnestly, as if it was a reasonable question.
“Because I’ve worked hard to sound like someone who can hear,” she said, crossing her arms. “Now, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
“Are you here because Mr. Fisk sent you?” he said, tearing a piece out of his pizza as if he was imagining biting someone’s head off. “You can tell Mr. Fisk that sending his little deaf girl over here wasn’t part of the deal.”
Maya frowned. This would be a lot easier if they could relax, and she wished Bingham would invite her to sit—though now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure she’d want to sit in any of those chairs.
“I think we got off to a bad start,” she suggested.
“I don’t know—it was fun when I grabbed you,” Bingham said. “Yanked you inside. That was a good start.” He scowled. “It wasn’t so good after that.”
“I just need some information,” Maya said. “For Mr. Fisk.”
Bingham snorted. “Too bad, because I’m not a Fisk bootlicker. I don’t work for him, deaf girl. I’m a contractor. Con-trac-tor,” he repeated, dragging the word out. “You underst
and? That means he asks me to do a job. If I want to do it, and the price is right, it’ll get done. If I don’t like it, I don’t do it. That’s how it works. But there’s nothing I can’t do. Did you know that about me? Did you know I’m special?”
“No,” Maya said sweetly. “I mean, I’d heard you had an impressive skill set…” She left it at that, to see what he’d say.
“You don’t know anything,” he replied. “Thief, assassin, safecracker, infiltrator, human dynamo, space explorer. Black ops and wet work. You want it, I’ve done it. I’ve been trained.” She thought he puffed out his chest a little.
The world was a strange place, but Maya was willing to gamble it all that this guy had never been in space. And what exactly was a human dynamo? Regardless, Mr. Fisk was trusting Bingham to do a job, so she could assume the thieving and safecracking were real.
“So, what was your mission tonight?” she asked. “For Mr. Fisk.”
“If you don’t know, I ain’t gonna tell,” he replied belligerently. The grin was long gone. “You’re real pretty, but I’m not dumb enough to let anything slip. How do I even know you work for Fisk?”
She took a business card out of her pocket and handed it to him. He stared at it for a moment, then screwed his face up in a smirk.
“Anyone could print these up,” he said. “But you know what… I believe you. You want to know why I believe you?”
Because you’re a human dynamo?
She just shook her head.
“It’s how you talk about him,” he continued. “See, people give things away with how they say stuff, and you sound like you’d be happy to spend all day, every day, licking his gigantic shoes. That’s how I know you’re the real deal. So, what I think is this, Miss Special Assistant…” He waved her business card around. “I think you’re maybe not as special an assistant as you’d like to be. I think maybe the Kingpin hasn’t told you nearly as much as you’d like to know about my business.
