by David Liss
Not exactly on his own, because he was too young for that. The city sent a mean woman with a lot of freckles. This woman walked like she was older than she looked, and she came to talk about what she called his “choices.” It sounded to him like he didn’t have any. He didn’t have relatives, so he’d have to live with some stranger or go to a group home. When people talked about choices, they were usually lying.
There was only one choice, and you had to take it.
That’s when Bingham discovered he had a power. They gave him one choice, but what if he didn’t take it? That meant rethinking everything, like walking away when kids were mean. You didn’t have to stand there and listen, he told himself. You could go somewhere else.
It felt weird leaving Binghamton. It was his place, but he told himself he’d be back some day, and things would be the way they were supposed to be. Maybe his mother wouldn’t die. Maybe when he came back, she’d still be lying in that hospital bed, and he’d tell her she wasn’t sick anymore and she would stand up and walk right out of there. Maybe Rick would come back and show him some more about how to fight.
It would be his town, like it was supposed to be.
He wanted to go to Syracuse, because he knew there was a place called Syracuse in ancient Greece, and he liked the idea of one city being in two different places, two different times. He didn’t know how that could work, and he wanted to see it for himself.
The woman at the ticket counter spoke with a heavy accent, though, and she kept accusing him of mumbling even though she was the one who was hard to understand. There were decisions he had to make, and they were so confusing, and he ended up just agreeing to something she said so the conversation could be over. That’s how he ended up buying a ticket to New York City.
When he realized what he’d done, he’d been upset. He’d wanted to cry. Things like this shouldn’t happen in his city, but they did whether he wanted them to or not. It seemed like bad things were all that happened anymore, so maybe going very far away was for the best. Maybe he should go where the ticket told him to go.
So Bingham went to New York City.
It was terrible, and also familiar. New York was a place from the television and the movies. He’d seen it so many times that going there almost felt like stepping into a memory. But people were busy and rude, and he couldn’t find a place to live. He hadn’t even thought about that. He’d imagined he would walk around, look for houses with signs in the windows advertising rooms for rent. That was something he’d seen in a movie once, but there weren’t houses in New York—just buildings, and to rent an apartment you needed identification and references. You needed a job, and you needed more money than Bingham could imagine.
A very impatient man in a real estate office explained it to him and then demanded that he leave. And so he’d ended up sleeping in the subway until the police made him leave. Then on a bench. Then on some flattened cardboard boxes, where someone stole his shoes. It was getting cold, and it was hard to go around with bare feet, so he stole someone else’s shoes. That person hadn’t been sleeping, but he looked like he owned a house that had more shoes in it. Bingham wished he hadn’t resisted so much.
He tried to remember everything Rick had taught him about keeping his hands up and using his feet and punching behind his target. When he had to do it, though, it wasn’t like dancing, the way Rick had taught him. Fighting turned out to be less about footwork and more about pounding fists and elbows and knees. It was about knocking people down and kicking their faces.
Then you took the shoes.
That’s all you needed to know about fighting.
He ran off with his shoes and hid in case the police came. They didn’t.
* * *
ONCE, when Bingham looked up, he saw a figure swinging from rooftop to rooftop. It had to be the person they called Spider-Man. It was dark, and Bingham couldn’t see his face, but he knew Spider-Man was looking at him and was scared of him.
The idea came into his head all at once—that they had switched places somehow. Bingham was supposed to be the one swinging through the night, and that guy in the Spider-Man suit was supposed to be stuck on the cold ground. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he didn’t worry about it, because true things didn’t need to be explained.
That winter was very cold. Maybe it wasn’t as cold as the winters got in Binghamton, but back home he’d been able to spend more time indoors. He’d never had to sleep outside during the winter before. That made it seem colder. Knowing that Spider-Man was out there with his stolen life made things colder, too.
He had to ask people for money and food. Sometimes he got it. He found a cat and put it on a leash, and that helped him get more money and food. People liked the cat, but the cat ran away, so that only got him through a couple of weeks.
One day, there was a pretty lady standing in front of him.
“Can you give me any money or food?” he asked. “I’m hungry, and I don’t have any money.”
“I can take you to a place that’s warm,” she said, smiling. “There will be plenty to eat, and we can help you—if you are willing to help us.”
“Help you do what?”
“We want to give you some medicine and see if it makes you better or worse.”
Bingham thought about that. He didn’t think he could get any worse, and the idea of being warm, of having plenty to eat, sounded much better.
“Okay,” he said. “I’d do that.” He went with the pretty lady, and he started taking the medicine. It made him worse at first, and then a whole lot better.
That’s when he met the man who changed his life.
ALL this effort didn’t seem to be making things any better.
Spider-Man had searched two more Fisk buildings since the blast, copying files, securing data. Lieutenant Watanabe told him it was making a difference, building their case, but he didn’t feel it. He hated that people had died so that Fisk could play his head games, and he hated that people blamed him for what had happened. Not everyone, and the debates still raged in the media about whether or not it had been Spider-Man who fought Shocker, but enough people were willing to think the worst of him.
“That doesn’t matter,” the lieutenant said during one of their meetings. “I know it hits home now, but it will blow over. Another story will distract them, and people will go back to seeing the good you do.”
Spider-Man wasn’t so sure. Tonight he’d rescued a teenager from a mugger, and both the mugger and the victim had fled from him in terror. How could he help people if they were afraid of him?
For that very reason he’d been keeping a low profile. Crime victims, accident victims, people trapped in burning buildings—it didn’t matter if the walls were coming down around them. They still treated him like he was the threat. Meanwhile, his doppelgänger was spotted two or three times a week, not exactly giving random citizens wedgies, but causing minor mayhem and generally spreading the idea that Spider-Man simply didn’t care about ordinary people.
“Keep your eye on the important things,” Watanabe said, but he had two eyes. He could keep one on her data hunting, but he had his other eye on someone else. Again and again he watched the footage of the fight between the Shocker and the imposter. One thing was clear—the Shocker was in on it. He wasn’t the brightest light out there, and if he could just be nabbed, getting information out of him shouldn’t be hard.
Watanabe didn’t know about this plan, because he wasn’t in the mood to be talked out of it.
* * *
IT felt strange, walking into a place like an ordinary person, but in costume. Not swinging, leaping, or tumbling—just… walking. His search for the Shocker had hit a dead end, and it was time to start questioning some people who might actually know.
The establishment known as the Bar with No Name was familiar to the police, but even if they were looking for criminals with enhanced abilities, it wasn’t worth the danger to try to get inside. It was also well-known to people like Spider-Man,
but good guys in costumes generally kept out unless there was a solid tip. J. Jonah Jameson claimed that super villains did what they did because super heroes egged them on. There might be an element of truth to the notion. Thus, going into one of their safe places could quickly escalate.
So he would go in mellow. He would follow the rules, and there would be no problems.
He knocked on the door and an eye-level slit hissed open.
“So, I’m selling cookie dough for a fundraiser,” he said. “Any interest?” He leaned forward and said in a whisper, “You don’t even have to use it to make cookies. You can eat it right out of the tub.”
“Sorry.” Only a pair of eyes could be seen on the other side. “This is a no-trouble zone.”
“No trouble intended,” Spider-Man said, showing his empty hands—as though that actually meant anything. “I know how it goes in there. I just want to talk.”
The panel slid shut, and there was a muffled conversation. He had the distinct impression the guy at the door was talking it over with someone. Then the door clicked open.
When he entered there was the usual hubbub of a bar, and a guy stood in the back holding a microphone. As soon as he was through the door, the effect was instantaneous.
Silence.
Conversation stopped as if a switch had been flipped. All eyes turned toward Spider-Man. He decided he would play it cool, act like he didn’t notice, and strolled up to the bar, taking note of everything he saw along the way.
Like, for example, Electro hanging out at a table, and the Scorpion standing nearby. There were lots of other people without costumes. They could have been anyone, from some crime boss’s henchman to gang members to villains Spider-Man had fought—difficult to recognize without their usual getups.
“Chill down, villainous people,” he announced with the same meaningless empty-hands gesture he’d used outside. “Bar with No Name. No fighting. I get it.”
Spider-Man walked calmly across the room. He reached the bar and smiled at the bartender—though it didn’t do much good. The guy was tall and wore a tank top that exposed arms that looked like they could punch through walls. He also held what looked like a glowing green baseball bat—some kind of tech that could stop someone with enhanced abilities, or at least slow them down.
“There are rules, and as long as you follow them, you get to come in,” the bartender growled, “but it’s a bad idea you being here.”
“Why, have prices gone up?”
“I’m serious, bro. We’re all on thin ice.”
“Relax,” Spider-Man said. “I’m just here for justice and vengeance. Nothing can go wrong. What do you have that’s good filtered through a mask?”
“Come on!” a simian, and frankly hairy, shirtless guy shouted. “Let’s get on with it!”
Ugh, that guy, Spider-Man thought. “Hey, Gibbon. ’Sup!”
“Just cool your jets,” the bartender told Hairy. “I’ll deal with this.” Then he waved to the guy with the microphone. In turn, the man in back leaned into the microphone.
“What is…” he began in menacing tones, “the largest lake in Africa?”
At their tables, people began talking among themselves and scribbling. The noise level went quickly back to normal.
“It’s trivia night,” the bartender explained. “What do you want?”
Spider-Man looked around the room. The Scorpion—Mac Gargan—hissed at Electro, loudly enough that “Lake Tanganyika” could be heard. Electro shut him up.
“It’s not Tanganyika,” Spider-Man said to the bartender. “I’m looking for a guy who hangs out here. Average height. Wears a puffy suit. Backpack. Vibro-gauntlets. Goes by the name of ‘Shocker.’ Ring any bells? Does it—” Peter forced a fake snicker “—jolt any memories?”
Before the guy could respond to his witty repartee, a shadow stretched across the bar. Someone was looming behind him, but his Spider-Sense wasn’t tingling, so he chose not to react. In his peripheral vision he could see that the Scorpion had come over—no easy task with his giant spiked tail sticking out. Gargan put a massive gloved hand on Spider-Man’s shoulder.
“You’re disturbing game night, Web-Head,” he said. “I’m gonna have to escort you out the back way, whether you like it or not.” Then, much more quietly, he leaned in and whispered, “Play along, but don’t go too quietly.”
Still no Spider-Sense, so all signs, however improbably, suggested that the Scorpion was sincere. He struggled a bit, then let the big man in the bigger costume shove him forcefully through the bar, past the bathrooms, and into a storeroom. Just before the door closed behind him, he turned back to the room and shouted:
“It’s Lake Victoria!”
He was met with a chorus of boos.
Once outside, the Scorpion moved him a safe distance away, then stepped back and folded his arms.
“Seriously?” he said. “Sauntering in here like it’s an old private eye movie. What if Electro and I decided to, I don’t know, team up against you? Kick your ass?”
Most of the time these guys couldn’t agree on the time of day, much less have the discipline to team up, but he wasn’t going to antagonize the Scorpion by saying that.
“I need to find Shocker.”
“Yeah, I heard that,” Scorpion said. “And I’m gonna help you.”
“Oooo-kay,” Spider-Man said cautiously. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but why would you do that?”
“Because there are weird things going on in this city,” Gargan replied, and he sounded sincere. “People moving into territories that don’t belong to them. Guys disappearing who people like you would never miss, but it messes with people like me. And honestly, I don’t like this fake web-slinger.”
“I’m touched,” Spider-Man said. “So you knew it was a fake?”
“Of course I knew,” Scorpion said. “What, do you think I ain’t got eyes? Guy didn’t talk or act anything like you. Plus the suit was wrong—any idiot could tell. The web lines were too close together.”
“I’m not all that comfortable with how much I agree with you right now, so maybe you could tell me where to find Shocker.”
Scorpion jabbed a thumb toward the far corner of the storeroom, where a man sat slumped on a wooden chair, eating miserably out of a bowl. “He hates trivia night,” Gargan said in a quiet voice. “He gets everything wrong.”
The guy looked like the embodiment of depression. His slouched posture, red and watery eyes, the slack expression on his face as he mechanically spooned something into his mouth.
Herman Schultz. Shocker.
And out of his suit, which seemed like a pretty good deal, as far as Spider-Man was concerned. He felt the anger begin to build inside. Here was the guy who had blown up the sandwich place, who had killed all those people, who had killed Anika. Spider-Man wanted to grab him, to drag him out of that bar. Let Scorpion or anyone else try to stop him.
He controlled himself, however, because he was there for answers. He had agreed to play by the rules, because something had been totally wrong with that operation from the beginning. The guy on the video feed hadn’t seemed like Shocker, hadn’t talked like Shocker, and there was no way Shocker would cause mayhem—certainly not with bombs, when he could be using his gauntlets. He loved those gauntlets.
“Herman,” he said, walking over, “quit stuffing your face for a minute and tell me everything you know, or we’re going to have a major problem.”
“I already got major problems,” Schultz said. “Someone stole my suit.”
Spider-Man folded his arms. Okay, this made sense. It would certainly explain a lot if that had been a fake Shocker, fighting a fake Spider-Man.
“When did this happen?”
“Maybe a month ago,” Schultz said. “I’ve been trying to get something new put together, but it’s complicated ’cause the cops are looking for me. Not just for the restaurant thing. I commit a lot of crimes.”
“You say that as if we’re not already friends,” Spider-Man
replied.
“Hey, you seem like you know a lot of science stuff,” Schultz said. “Maybe you could help me get a new suit.”
“Yeah, wait right there. I’ll call my tailor.” He paused, then added, “What can you tell me about the one you lost?”
“Some guy all in black came at me from behind… and above,” Schultz said. “Never saw it coming. He actually kind of moved like you, but he punched like a boxer. If I could’ve gotten one good shot at him, I’d have taken him, but he didn’t fight fair.”
“That’s a bummer alright,” Spider-Man agreed.
“It wasn’t just the suit, though,” Schultz said. “He took over my website. Shut me out of the thing. I put in my name and password, but it says I’m wrong. I mean, I can’t make any money if I don’t have a suit, but there’s a principle here.”
“You have a website?” Spider-Man said.
“You gotta be all modern these days,” Schultz explained.
“Can’t argue with a tautology,” Spider-Man agreed. “Did you try tracking the IP address of the hacked website, to see if you could locate the guy?”
Schultz blinked at him.
“You’re just making word-like sounds as far as he’s concerned,” Scorpion said.
Spider-Man turned to Gargan. “Didn’t you guys try to get his suit back for him?”
“We’re all sort of on the same side here,” Scorpion said, “but it’s not like we’re on the same team, if you get my meaning. Besides, after that restaurant fiasco, Shocker is red hot. None of us want to go anywhere near anything that has to do with his suit.”
Better for me, Spider-Man thought.
It might be too much to hope for, but he knew his way around a computer. If he could find out who was running the Shocker’s website, then he’d be one step closer to finding out who had partnered with the false Spider-Man.
He shrugged at the Scorpion. “This has been a surprisingly productive use of my time. I’m not really sure how to say this, but thanks.”
