by David Liss
“I oughta rip you in half for answering that trivia question,” the Scorpion said, “which I knew, by the way, but I get it. You’re trying to protect your reputation, so I’ll give you a pass.”
“What does it matter to you, me trying to protect my reputation?”
“Because it’s selfish,” the Scorpion said with a grin. “That means you’re just like the rest of us.”
* * *
HE wasn’t being selfish.
Sure, he had a personal motivation for not wanting the world to hate him, but it made it a lot easier to be one of the good guys. Ultimately, that was the important thing. Probably. In any case, it was a philosophical question, and Spider-Man had other issues to address.
His first priority was tracking down the owner of the stolen suit, so he made a quick detour to his apartment and pulled up Shocker’s website, which was pretty basic—means of contact and methods of payment through third-party systems. There were a whole host of ways to hide an IP address, but there were also plenty of ways to crack those protections.
Turned out it wasn’t particularly well-hidden in the first place. In less than half an hour, he had a location in Turtle Bay, right around the corner from the Wakandan Embassy.
* * *
UNFORTUNATELY, his digging couldn’t get him an apartment number, so Spider-Man was reduced to peering into the windows of the converted brownstone. He hoped he didn’t see anything embarrassing. The last thing he needed was to be labeled a Peeping Tom.
Many of the apartments were dark and empty. In one, a couple were watching TV. In another, a man was playing with his dog. In yet another, a man in a Shocker suit stood before a full-length mirror, posing.
“I am the sinister Shocker!” he announced in a voice muffled by the suit.
Something tells me this is the place.
The man in the Shocker suit turned suddenly. He must’ve caught a glimpse of Spider-Man in the mirror, because he unleashed a wave of vibrations from his gauntlet. The Web-Slinger simultaneously pushed himself back and twisted to the side. As he tumbled through the air, he shot a line of webbing at an adjacent—and much taller—building, pulling himself high in the air to give himself a moment to formulate a strategy.
When he looked back, the fake Shocker was standing by his open window, peering out like he was admiring the view.
There’s my strategy, Spider-Man thought, torpedoing the fake Shocker with two lines of webbing. Then he pulled hard as he fell. The Schultz impersonator tumbled out the window headfirst.
Tumbling downward, Spider-Man put out protective webbing below the man in the Shocker suit and then sent out another line so he could swing, rather than plummet, to the ground. When he landed, the fake Shocker was lying on his back in the web, trying to sit up. He managed to raise his arm enough to send out a blast, but the Web-Slinger backflipped out of the way.
This guy is no Herman Schultz.
He used his webs to pin the imposter’s arms. He lay there trapped in—Spider-Man thought about this for a moment—a hammock of despair. Yeah, that felt right.
But it wasn’t nearly enough, he told himself. This was the murderer, then. This was the guy who committed crimes too horrible even for the Shocker.
“Stop!” the imposter cried out. “Don’t web me anymore. I don’t want to fight.”
“Then why did you start fighting?”
“You startled me—and then you pulled me out of my window!” The guy actually sounded scared and, well, harmless. He didn’t sound like a cold-blooded killer.
“The bombing,” Spider-Man said. “Tell me everything.”
“I didn’t know!” he shouted. “Look, my name is Phil. Phil Simons. I’m an actor. I mean I want to be. I’ve had a few roles. I even had the lead in—”
“Focus,” Spider-Man snapped.
“Look, the suit came in a package, along with the password for the website. Then jobs started coming in. I needed the money, and then came the thing at the sandwich place, and a note saying I had to do it or they’d turn me over to police. I was never really a bad guy, just playing one.”
“In real life.”
“It was good money!” Simons protested. “And I kept getting threats. He said I had to keep on being the Shocker. I didn’t know what to do. You have no idea what it’s like not to be able to pay your rent.”
“Yeah, that’s outside my experience for sure,” Spider-Man said. He didn’t expect the guy to catch the irony.
“I swear, all the jobs I’ve taken have been about intimidating people. I’d never hurt anyone.” His voice rose as he talked. “And at the sandwich place—he said it was just to make a scene, to make you look bad. I had no idea there was a bomb. I’d never want to hurt anyone. I’m just an ordinary guy.”
“You could have called the police.”
“I needed the money,” Phil whined. “I told you that already. And it was a great role. You’ve fought the real Shocker, right? You’d never have known it wasn’t the real thing. The Spider-Man guy—it was like he wasn’t even trying to be you. But I inhabited that role. I was Shocker.”
“How do I find the guy?” Spider-Man demanded. “People died there. I need answers.”
“I have no idea. He contacted me. I never had a way to get in touch with him. I’d help you if I could, but I don’t know. Please, you have to let me go.”
Down the street there was the warning bleat of a police car, which didn’t surprise him. He hoped that cooperating like this might begin to repair his reputation, at least a little.
“Sorry, Phil,” Spider-Man said, “but it looks like this is going to be the role of a lifetime—or at least about twenty years.”
Cars pulled up on either side of him, and cops tumbled out, guns already drawn.
“Hands up, Spider-Man!” one of them shouted.
“So it doesn’t make a difference that I caught the sandwich-shop bomber?” he asked, slowly raising his hands.
“On your knees, slowly, clasp your hands behind your head!”
“This is the Shocker,” he replied. “Or a guy pretending to be the Shocker. Whatever. This is the guy involved in the explosion. He’ll tell you—I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
With that he leapt straight up, faster than they could react, shot off a web and swung himself out of there. He hoped the police would have the good sense not to fire at him.
SHE sat in Fisk’s office again. MJ had been trying to reach Peter all morning, but they kept missing each other. At least his messages said he was okay. The story in the paper wasn’t clear, but it seemed like both he and the Shocker had been cornered the previous night, although Spider-Man had escaped.
According to the report, Peter fled the scene as soon as the cops arrived. The Shocker wasn’t the real Shocker, but he did seem to be involved in the bombing. The police were still trying to sort it all out, even while they downplayed Spider-Man’s role in the arrest.
Ever since the night of the explosion, they’d struggled to find time together. Peter was throwing every spare minute into his efforts to bring down Wilson Fisk. They’d never even finished their conversation, but that was largely MJ’s decision. He was struggling, which made it a less-than-ideal time to fine-tune their relationship.
The relationship would survive. She hoped.
For now she had to get her head in the game. Fisk had invited her in after another of her stories had run. It had outlined some of his plans for upcoming development projects, but had taken more of a hard news angle than her editor had originally wanted. MJ had compared Fisk’s projections with plans filed with the city, and she’d interviewed some of the contractors. The bottom line had been that it seemed like reality was going to fall far short of Fisk’s promises.
Robbie Robertson had called her into his office.
“You are a features writer,” he’d said. “Features. If you have a lead like that, you let someone know, and they’ll pass it along to an appropriate reporter. If it checks out, you get to particip
ate. You do not choose for yourself which stories to write. Are we clear?”
MJ had nodded.
Then he’d grinned. “I’ll also say that this is a hell of a story. You’re going to make an outstanding reporter.” The smile disappeared. “But not if you can’t learn to play nice with others.”
She’d understood the point. Afraid she’d be told to drop it, she’d pursued the angle herself. Now that he’d made it clear what procedure to follow, she wouldn’t be able to feign ignorance.
In the meantime, she assumed Fisk had brought her in because he was upset about the story. He couldn’t do anything about it, of course, so he’d try to find some other way to defuse her.
When she was shown into his office, a meeting seemed to be breaking up, and she had to work her way through a throng of Wall Street types. They were talking excitedly about municipal bonds, which seemed interesting to MJ, but she wasn’t sure if she’d get a chance to follow up on it. Especially not after her most recent dressing-down.
A young woman joined them and was introduced as Maya Lopez. She barely spoke, but mostly studied MJ with a nasty stare. She hadn’t exactly seemed warm the first time they met, but now MJ felt sure she’d never want to cross her. Fisk glanced in Lopez’s direction from time to time.
“Miss Watson,” Fisk said. “That was quite a story the Bugle ran yesterday. You are keeping the people in my public relations office very busy.”
“My job is to report the truth,” she said.
“Oh, the truth is an elusive thing,” he replied coolly. “Do you believe your story tells the whole truth?”
“A story can never be complete,” she said. “The best a reporter can do is relate the facts that are currently available. Once I’d done the research, I contacted your media office and gave them a chance to respond in the piece. No one got back to me.”
“Perhaps newspapers view deadlines differently than corporate offices. If you had waited a little longer, you would have received information that cast things in a different light.”
“And now you want me to write about this new information?”
“Of course not,” Fisk said. “No doubt the story you wrote is an enormous accomplishment for you. You made me look bad. Reporters live for such things, but it is not a matter of great importance to us. Businesses receive cuts and bruises every day. It’s the way the game is played, and while this story is a new line on your résumé—something your coworkers may even remember years from now—by tomorrow the public will have already forgotten. I don’t concern myself with trivialities.”
The fact that she was sitting there seemed to dispute this claim, but MJ chose not to point this out.
“Then what can I do for you?”
“I wonder what your goals are, Miss Watson. I mean your long-term goals. You are a reasonably talented writer, and likely you enjoy working with words, but there are many options other than journalism. There are positions in the corporate sector that would satisfy your need to be creative, but allow you to live a much more… satisfying life.”
“Are you offering me a job?” MJ asked. It came out as more of an incredulous burst than she would have intended, but it seemed so ridiculous. One slightly unfavorable story, and Fisk wanted to buy her. It was so heavy-handed. She tried to follow it up with a cheery smile.
He chuckled. It still sounded ominous.
“I’m not offering you a position in my company at this time, no,” he said. “I am merely suggesting that a position might open up at a future date, for which you would be very well suited. If you were to ask me to hold such a position for you, I could do so, and even, let us say, advance your salary so that the trifling paycheck you currently receive from the Bugle doesn’t diminish your options.”
MJ’s smile felt as though it might fall off and shatter on the floor. This was exactly the sort of thing Peter had warned her about. She had gotten close to Fisk, and now he wanted to own her. If he couldn’t own her, then what?
She’d heard enough stories about his rage to worry. While beating a young reporter to death wouldn’t be entirely out of character, it was fairly unlikely. She hadn’t just wandered in off the street. Her editor knew where she was. She’d logged in with security downstairs. Then there was the silent woman, Maya Lopez. Judging from the way he kept glancing in her direction, it seemed as if she somehow kept Fisk… contained.
No amount of logic was going to help her deal with this. It wasn’t as if she could agree to be Fisk’s paid lackey. That meant she had to decline. Of course, there were lots of ways to do that, and the trick would be to appeal to his own sense of ego, rather than anger him.
“I appreciate the offer, Mr. Fisk,” she said, “but journalism is my goal—it always has been, I think. I love working at the Bugle, and the corporate side of things doesn’t hold much of an interest for me right now.”
She waited, but Fisk just smiled. “I understand, Miss Watson. I appreciate that you have your own goals. It’s worth pointing out, however, that my company has a controlling interest in a number of media outlets.”
“I’m sure things would be easier if I had a patron,” she said, “and you’d be a powerful ally, but I’d like to see how far I can go on my own before I start asking for help.”
“Entirely understandable,” he said. “Indeed, it’s admirable. I wish more journalists had your integrity.”
“I do the best I can,” she said. “I suspect most people do the same.”
“You may be giving most people far too much credit.” He pivoted slightly in his chair, a clear sign that he wanted to change the topic. “I’d like to send you to see one of my senior accounting officers, who will go over some of the numbers you ran in your piece. I’m not saying you had your information wrong, but a lack of context suggests a false interpretation. That could be very unfortunate.”
Very slowly, MJ let out her breath.
Peter was right. Crossing Fisk was dangerous—but he was an emotional being, like anyone else, and could be managed. She’d stepped into what might have been a dangerous situation, and she’d handled it. She deserved a pat on the back for this one. She also realized she needed to trust herself more. Peter and Fisk had come to blows because Spider-Man came at Fisk with webs shooting and fists swinging. MJ had a different approach, and it produced different results. She had faith in herself.
She wished Peter had more faith in her.
* * *
MJ thanked Fisk and shook hands with him and Maya Lopez as she left the office. It had been a long, and possibly pointless, meeting. Fisk wanted her to write an article that would largely undermine her previous piece. She didn’t want to do that, but agreed to meet with the accountant to see if there were angles she hadn’t considered.
Even now, her mind began to churn through feature ideas she could pitch that would allow her to stay on the Fisk story. Throw the man a few crumbs, but still dig deeper. There were angles—covering some of the subcontractors, perhaps, or a piece on how neighborhood planning might be influenced by the new construction projects. Maybe even seeing what the Wall Street types had been up to.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost bumped into a trio of men. They wore business suits, but they definitely weren’t finance types. They screamed military—or at least ex-military.
“I’m sorry.” She looked up at the giant of a man with whom she’d almost collided. “I was lost in thought.”
“Not at all, ma’am,” he said, looking through her and not at her. Interaction with an unknown female must not have been part of the mission parameters, she thought. Not the friendliest of people, but still, a reporter didn’t get far if she didn’t at least try.
“I’m sorry if my meeting went on a little long,” she said. “I hope I didn’t make you wait.”
“No, ma’am,” he answered expressionlessly.
Okay, no idle chit-chat. She’d try the head-on approach.
“What brings you to Mr. Fisk’s office?”
“That’s
not something Mr. Fisk wishes us to discuss, ma’am,” he said.
A swing and a miss, but not entirely a waste of effort. She now knew Fisk was bringing in military types, for something he didn’t want to discuss. It might be nothing more than vandalism at a construction site, but somehow she doubted it.
* * *
AN hour later, after a tedious and unenlightening meeting with the accounting officer, MJ was on her way out and stopped to say goodbye to the security guard. She was always friendly with the guards on her way in and out.
She was outgoing by nature, which was one of the reasons she wanted to make her living hearing strangers tell their stories. On the other hand, she knew most people hurried past the security desk, treating the workers there as impediments rather than people. A smile and a few kind words garnered no guarantee of anything in return, but it didn’t hurt.
“See you next time,” she said, peering at his name tag. “Hank.” She flashed him a smile. The other one, Therese, was dealing with a visitor.
“You have a good day, Miss Watson.”
She started through, then stopped.
What the hell. It was worth a try.
“You know, about an hour ago I almost got run over by these three enormous guys. They looked like ex-marines or something.”
He laughed. “Yeah, those gorillas from Roxxon Blackridge. They don’t look like they play around. They’re late today, though. Most days they come in by seven-thirty, and they’re out the door again fifteen minutes later.”
“Well, try not to make them angry.” She laughed and waved as she walked off.
So she’d been right. Roxxon Blackridge was a security contractor. She’d have to do a little research, but she was pretty sure they were involved in more demanding work than chasing off teenagers carrying cans of spray paint. MJ smiled as she walked out of the building. Maybe this would go nowhere, but maybe it was a lead.
Either way, finding out was going to be fun.
* * *
