Marvel's SPIDER-MAN

by David Liss

  By the time he arrived, the logistics of this thing were still a mess.

  It was always a risk to interact with cops—occasionally he encountered one who was overzealous, and wanted to be the guy who captured Spider-Man. Still, he needed more information if he was going to help, and he spotted a solitary officer who’d just helped to clear the perimeter. A couple of teenagers had tried to push their way through, and this guy had ushered them away, but he’d done it without being a jerk about it. He seemed to be sympathetic with the fact that teenagers were, by nature, going to do stupid things.

  So it was worth a shot.

  He leapt down and landed on a brick wall right next to the police officer.

  “Holy crap!” The guy took a step back. “You’re Spider-Man!”

  “Got it in the first try,” Peter replied. “And you?”

  “Jeff Davis,” he said. “You know what’s going on in there?”

  “I was kind of hoping you could tell me—so we could see if there was any way I could help.”

  “The whole thing feels hinky to me.” The cop shook his head. “We got a bunch of conflicting reports, but so far no hard information. The infrared and sound-mic guys are set up, but so far they haven’t been able to pick up anything. It’s a big place, with its own warehouse, but that doesn’t explain it—there are still some itchy questions.”

  “Like who takes hostages in an auction house at night?”

  “Exactly!” The cop touched his nose. “Something’s fishy.”

  “You said it,” Spider-Man replied. “Thanks for your help.” He pushed off and leapt upward, bounding back and forth between two buildings until he reached the roof. From that vantage point he looked down at the auction house and its storage facility. There were a few points of entry, including one on the roof, and they all looked quiet.

  He was grateful that the cop had been so helpful. He wished now he’d been paying attention when he’d said his name. Jefferson, or something like that?

  * * *

  INSIDE Rosemann’s, everything was completely quiet. There weren’t even any security guards, because they’d all been evacuated. After doing extensive recon, Spider-Man took out his phone and called Yuri Watanabe.

  “You hear anything about this Rosemann situation?” he asked her. “I’m inside, but I don’t see anything. It’s completely deserted.”

  “You shouldn’t be messing around with a hostage situation,” Watanabe said.

  “That’s my point,” he answered. “There are no hostages. No hostage takers. No one at all.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “Half the department is down there. They’re treating this like a major crisis. They’ve even called in a hazmat team. There’s a rumor that a dirty bomb might be involved.”

  “Maybe a dusty bomb,” Spider-Man said, running his fingers along the wall. “It’s possible something could be hidden in one of these crates, but there’s no sign of anything bad-guyish at all. It feels like a complete false alarm or—”

  He stopped himself, pretty sure Watanabe was thinking the same thing.

  “A decoy.”

  * * *

  ANIKA watched MJ on line ahead of her. She hadn’t seemed angry at all that Peter had run out on her. Then she ordered two sandwiches—presumably one for him—and waited for her food. She leaned against the wall and poked at her phone, but didn’t gripe or look angry or call anyone to complain. She seemed nice, just like Peter was nice.

  Isn’t that just terrific? she thought wryly.

  The girlfriend picked up her order around the time Anika placed hers. She went and stood where the girlfriend had been, vaguely monitoring the atmosphere for nasty vibes but not picking up on anything. She took out her phone and began scrolling through her news feed. The best thing she could possibly do was distract herself from the fact that she’d been stalking.

  Then she heard the screaming.

  She looked up and one of them was in the restaurant—one of those people who wore costumes, and not one of the good ones. He had on a yellow puffy suit that almost looked like a winter jacket, and a yellow hood with an orange stripe down the middle. There was a mechanical contraption on his back, and he had metal gauntlets that seemed to be wired into the device.

  “I am the sinister Shocker!” the man cried in a voice muffled by his mask. “Here to cause mayhem and destruction!” He turned to the door and bursts of teeth-rattling vibrations emanated from his gauntlets. The metal around the door buckled and folded in around itself, leaving everyone trapped inside.

  Anika felt panic welling up.

  “Let’s just calm down,” a man said, stepping forward. He was dressed like he’d just come from the gym, and his muscles were bulging out of his tank top. It looked like he wanted to play the hero, but he was also being cautious, approaching slowly with his hands up. “We can talk about this.”

  “This isn’t a time for conversation!” Shocker proclaimed. A burst exploded from his gauntlets. The man flew backward and landed on the floor, twitching but still alive. It was as if he’d been tased or bludgeoned or something. That was a sign the Shocker didn’t want to kill anyone. At least she hoped it was.

  Her phone was in her hand anyhow, so with trembling fingers Anika opened the camera app, turned it to video, and began recording. The police were going to want to see as much evidence as possible. She could show them when this was all over, and if she didn’t make it—well, people would say she’d been a thoughtful citizen until the end.

  “Prepare for the worst!” Shocker cried out, as if he was trying to make sure they could hear him in the cheap seats. It was like the guy had never dealt with people before—but wasn’t he a known villain? “There will be violence. You there!” He pointed to a teenager wearing a hoodie. “Do you have a heart condition?”

  What on earth…? Anika thought.

  The kid shook his head.

  The Shocker hit him with a blast from his gauntlets.

  “Let that be a taste of my power!”

  There was something very wrong about this, and Anika wasn’t the only one who seemed to be aware. People were looking around with obvious confusion. No one said anything though, trying not to draw the lunatic’s attention.

  Then Spider-Man showed up.

  He leapt in from the back room, sailing across the restaurant and slamming feet first into the Shocker’s chest. The villain staggered, and the device on his back struck the wall with a crunching sound.

  “Hey!” Shocker shouted. “Be careful!”

  “Forget that,” Spider-Man said. “I’m gonna mess you up, Shocker.”

  “I have a room full of hostages here, Spider-Man,” the villain answered back. As loud as it was, his voice was as empty of actual emotion as a fourth-grader reciting lines from a school play. “If you attempt to apprehend me, I will kill them.”

  “You think I care about these losers?” Spider-Man asked, gesturing toward the huddled civilians. “They’re not rich or famous. What I care about is getting the credit for stopping you. If some people have to die along the way, that just means I’ve bagged a bigger fish.”

  “You won’t take me in,” Shocker said. “I’ve wired this restaurant with a bomb. If you try to stop me, we’ll all die.”

  “Not me, with my enhanced reflexes,” Spider-Man replied. “I’ll get away. If you’re dead, what do I care if you take the hostages with you?”

  “I’m done with this!” one of the hostages shouted. A burly man wearing a windbreaker, he picked up a trashcan and threw it hard against the window. The glass shattered and he—along with a dozen other people—raced out of the restaurant.

  Anika wondered if she could make it. She’d have to cross Shocker’s line of vision to get to the window, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention to his hostages anymore. He was more interested in circling around Spider-Man—if it really was him.

  That was starting to seem unlikely. Anika had been too busy with school to pay attention to the costumed heroes who always se
emed to be cropping up, but she’d always kind of liked Spider-Man. In the news footage he was always cracking jokes and saving kids who wandered in front of traffic. She supposed this man’s claim not to care about the victims might be an act—something to throw the Shocker off his game—but that didn’t feel right to her.

  “Your hostages are getting away,” Spider-Man said. “Don’t you think you should do something?” He looked over at a man cowering near him and grabbed him by the wrist. Yanking hard, he tossed him at the villain, who dodged out of the way. Then the two of them began to grapple.

  That was her chance. Other people were climbing through the broken window, yet she felt as if it was somehow important to record this—to preserve the data. That’s what she did. It was a piece of a puzzle, and even if she didn’t know what that puzzle was, someone was going to need to see it.

  Still—restaurant wired to blow.

  It was better not to ignore that sort of thing, so she began moving toward the gaping hole in the window, but slowly, holding up her phone so she could record the two men fighting. Or pretending to fight, maybe. More and more it looked fake.

  Suddenly the Shocker looked up.

  “We need to go,” he called out, and the two of them dashed into the kitchen—together.

  Oh, no…

  Anika lowered her phone and moved quickly toward the window.

  If I can just—

  There was a flash of light.

  Then there was nothing.

  IT didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem possible. While the actual restaurant smoldered behind him, and first responders combed the scene and put out fires, Spider-Man perched in the shadows and watched a massive Times Square television streaming news coverage of the event. Though it was usually silent, they’d turned on the sound.

  The restaurant he’d been in. Destroyed.

  People were dead.

  * * *

  AS he finished combing the antiques warehouse, Spider-Man’s phone rang with a call from MJ.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said when he picked up the call.

  “Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “Oh my God, you haven’t heard.”

  The chatter on the police band had been too much to let him focus on the task at hand, so he’d muted it. Now he turned it back on, and immediately a picture began to form. An explosion. Casualties. The Shocker—and Spider-Man.

  And it all happened at the sandwich place where he’d been just a little while ago.

  “I need to check this out.”

  “I know,” she said. “Just… be careful, okay. Something weird is going on.”

  * * *

  “HE called himself the Shocker,” a woman said as she stared into the interviewer’s camera. “He’d set a bomb in the place, and then Spider-Man came rushing in and they started fighting. Spider-Man said he didn’t care who got hurt. He even used one guy as a weapon—tossed him at Shocker.”

  The Shocker wouldn’t set an explosive. His weapon was vibrations, like a concussive blast. Strictly a second-rate villain, and not a bomber.

  That wasn’t the most inexplicable part of the story, but it was the one on which he focused. It was solid, concrete. It was something he could work with. Why would the Shocker, who loved using his gauntlets, set a bomb? What would it get him?

  Then, on the giant TV screen, the woman’s face was replaced by J. Jonah Jameson.

  Oh, that’s just great.

  “Spider-Man is a menace,” Jameson said, and it boomed across the square. “I’ve been telling the people of this city for years how dangerous he is. Even those who didn’t want to accept it will believe me now.”

  “Tomorrow, on my new broadcast, I’m going to break down how this latest affront isn’t anything new for the web-shooting maniac,” he said, “but a continuation of the dangerous criminal practices he’s been using all along. It’s time for people to wake up and acknowledge him as a threat to public safety!”

  His face disappeared, and the screen showed wobbly cell-phone footage of the fight between the Shocker and Spider-Man. It was definitely the Shocker—he’d recognize that puffy suit anywhere. And in a completely surreal way, it was as if he was looking at footage of himself. Whoever it was in the costume moved like he did. It was the same one from the shipyard. It was close, very close, but not quite his spider-suit.

  “This is footage from a cell phone found at the scene,” a news announcer said. “The camera belonged to one of the persons who remain unknown and may still be trapped under the rubble.” They showed an image of first responders covering a still body. It was just an instant, but Peter knew the face. He knew it. It was Anika.

  The breath caught in his lungs.

  “Emergency personnel are still combing the site, and if anyone knows the identity of the person who took the video, please call the number on your screen.”

  Anika. How was that even possible?

  He had to do something. He didn’t know what it was, but he had to act.

  * * *

  HE was at the scene—combing through rubble—before he’d even realized he’d made up his mind to do so. There were emergency workers everywhere, digging through debris that was soaking wet in some places, smoldering in others. Peter was lifting bricks and support beams and chunks of wood. He didn’t even notice it at first.

  People were screaming at him.

  “You haven’t done enough?” someone shouted.

  “Back for more?” another person called.

  “Get the hell away from here, you creep!”

  Then he saw it. A stretcher being wheeled away. Anika’s face, covered with dirt and soot and blood, visible for just a second before the EMT pulled the sheet over her face. It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be real…

  Then there was a grip on his wrist.

  “Let’s go,” a cop said. “You’re gonna have to answer some questions.”

  He felt himself shifting back to reality. Light reflecting off of handcuffs. A few other police officers moving closer, some reaching down to unbuckle their firearms. He had to go. People were dead. Anika was dead. Someone had done this—someone who looked like him. He would have to deal with it, but he couldn’t if he allowed himself to be arrested.

  “Sorry, but you’ve got the wrong guy,” he said. With his free hand he shot a web out to a nearby building, pulled free of the officer’s grasp, and launched himself upward.

  * * *

  YURI Watanabe was silent. The site of the explosion was a few blocks away, but clearly visible from the rooftop on which they stood.

  “How could anyone do something like that?” Spider-Man asked, staring out into the space between the buildings. “It’s so senseless, so random. People are dead, Yuri, and someone wants me to take the blame.”

  “Not someone,” she said, her voice angry. “Fisk. This is all him. You fought the fake Spider-Man at his construction site. We know now that it was his—the records weren’t as well hidden as he thought.” She made a noise that sounded like a growl. “That can’t be a coincidence. Fisk set it all up.”

  “He must have been watching me,” Spider-Man speculated, but his voice sounded distant, even to his own ears. “It was like he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist checking out such an offbeat crime. Then, when I showed up at the snake shop, that set everything in motion. But why? What does he get out of this?”

  Watanabe shook her head. “He wants the public believing that you’ve gone bad,” she said. “That’s the only logical assumption. It doesn’t matter why—he’s got a million reasons. Motive is for the cops on television. Real cops deal with evidence, and that means we need to stop Fisk before he pulls another stunt like this.”

  Spider-Man tried to focus. The fake hostages, the Shocker, the bomb, Anika. MJ. If it had gone down just a little differently, MJ could have been killed in the blast. His thoughts kept working in circles, going nowhere at all.

  “I’m going to get him,” he said, clenching his fists until it hurt. “I’m
going to take him down. Now.”

  “No,” Watanabe snapped. “Listen to me. What if he wants you to come after him? The way things stand right now, that might make him into even more of a hero. Don’t play into his hands. You can’t let him call the shots.”

  “So we do nothing?” he asked. “What about justice for the people who died tonight?”

  “We’ll have it.” Watanabe put a hand on his shoulder. He twitched. “I promise you. It may take more time than we’d like, but if we keep going, we’ll put him behind bars.”

  He took a deep breath, tried to clear his thoughts, but the best he could do was to focus on a single point—a bright and burning ball of fury. Revenge. Justice. Retribution. Whatever it was called, he knew he couldn’t rest until he’d dealt with Fisk. It would be the most important thing Spider-Man ever did. Maybe it would be the last thing Spider-Man would ever do. But it would get done.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it. Let’s take him down.”

  Watanabe nodded, and then turned back toward the site of the explosion. The area around the blast crater was lit up like daylight, and a hint of smoke still rose above the rubble. There was an acrid smell in the air, like a burning pot left on the stove. They remained there in wordless testimony, their silence more powerful than any spoken vow.

  * * *

  FROM his own rooftop, Bingham watched the weak Spider-Man imposter. Though his face was hidden behind the mask, Bingham could imagine the fury, the rage, and maybe even some fear. Fear that his world was starting to crumble.

  The false Spider-Man had gotten away with pretending for so long that he’d probably come to believe he was the real thing. Confronted with the truth, facing the power of the true Web-Slinger, he wouldn’t know what to do. He would run here and there, go this way and that, and still he would be powerless and helpless and weak. He was pathetic, and Bingham felt nothing but contempt for him.