Spider Man 3

by Peter David

  Harry fared far worse.

  He bounded back with as much force as he’d expended when he hit the webline. Because it had taken him in his midsection, he flipped over and landed on the pavement headfirst. Peter gasped in horror. Yes, the armor would absorb some of the damage, but that was still Harry’s body in there suffering the high-speed concussive impact. The human body could only take so much jolting around. A neck or back could easily snap, armored or not.

  Peter saw his friend lying in a heap on the ground and, to his own frustration, found himself hesitating. It could be a trick. Harry could be playing possum, lying there to draw him in close, biding his time for Peter to lean over him in concern—and then Harry could gut him. Send his intestines spilling out into the alleyway and laugh in glee at the stupid expression on Peter Parker’s dying face.

  Peter’s hesitation seemed to him to last an age. If that’s how I die, then that’s the way it goes, but I’ve got to see if he’s all right.

  Disdaining caution, Peter vaulted to the fallen Harry and checked him over. No warning of imminent danger from his spider-sense—Harry wasn’t faking anything. Peter pulled the mask away and saw that Harry’s eyes were closed, his face pale, a thin line of spittle trailing down the side of his face.

  “Harry?” he said, but didn’t wait for a response. Yanking the gauntlet off, he checked Harry’s pulse.

  Nothing.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered, unable to believe it. There was no way Peter could endure the knowledge that he had killed his best friend and single-handedly put an end to the Osborn family line. He put his head to Harry’s chest.

  Still nothing. The silence of the grave.

  “Oh my God! Harry!” There was no whispering it now, and even as Peter howled his dismay, he started pumping Harry’s chest. He had never been more grateful for that course in CPR that he had taken at the Y some years ago. He had been driven by terrible concerns that he might find his aunt or uncle collapsed on the floor one day, and he wanted to be certain that he would know what to do. Of course, he could never have envisioned back then, back before his life became the insane spectacle that it was today, the use to which he would be putting the training.

  Even as he applied the pressure to Harry’s heart, Peter’s mind was racing. First rule of an accident: don’t move the victim. You could cause all manner of greater damage in doing so.

  But he didn’t have a cell phone to call an ambulance, and even if he did, Peter didn’t know where the hell he was. He couldn’t begin to describe their location beyond “somewhere in Chinatown.”

  He thought he felt a stirring in Harry’s chest, but he couldn’t be certain. CPR was simply a stopgap to keep someone alive until the paramedics showed up. None were going to be coming in this case… or at least not in time.

  Seeing that he had no choice, Peter slung Harry over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Taking two quick steps, he fired a webline upward and bounded to the top of a building. He needed height, he needed to be able to see what was in the vicinity. The instant he hit the roof, he fired another webline and started swinging. Uptown, head uptown, he frantically told himself. He knew uptown better than he did downtown, and besides, downtown tended to be more deserted at this hour.

  Peter had never moved with less consideration for his own safety. Even with the web-slinging skills he had developed, swinging one-handed was remarkably dangerous. Rather than alternate arms, he would fire a webline, swing to its apex, release, fire another one, and keep moving. The advantage was that it resulted in great, distance-eating arcs. The disadvantage was that if he miscalculated, he could wind up smeared all over a building or on the side of an ill-timed passing truck.

  As he swung, he scrambled to recall everything he’d read about brain damage that could set in from lack of oxygen. What was it? Three minutes? Five minutes? How long before irreparable harm was done? How long before, even if Harry were brought back to full respiration, he would wind up being a vegetable?

  Peter spotted a huge red cross six blocks west. Instantly he headed in that direction. Time had slowed to a crawl, even though he was moving faster than anything else in Manhattan. In seconds, he was within sight of the emergency room, taking only the time required to yank the rest of the Goblin armor off Harry. Thank heavens there were passable street clothes underneath. Peter just didn’t feel the need to answer certain questions right then.

  Peter dropped to the street a block from the hospital and sprinted the rest of the way. He had no idea how much time had elapsed since Harry had been injured. He wasn’t even sure if the tortured young man slung over his shoulder was still alive. But he had no choice. He couldn’t let Harry die. And if, despite his best efforts, Harry didn’t make it…

  Don’t think about it. You always get in trouble when you think about things. Just run. Running, you’re good at.

  He was moving so quickly that the automatic doors to the emergency room almost didn’t open in time. Peter charged in, shouting for help, and a nurse and some guys in green shirts came running toward him. Part of him was surprised that it was really just like what one sees on television. Within seconds, Harry was being loaded onto a gurney and the doctors were doing triage. Peter was so numb that he didn’t even remember Harry being lifted off his shoulder.

  He watched as they shoved the gurney through a large set of double doors. They were shouting complicated medical terms, all at the same time, and it was so fast and loud that Peter couldn’t follow any of it. But none of it sounded good. He took a step toward Harry, and then his way was blocked by a doctor or orderly or paramedic or someone who was shouting into his face, “What happened? Tell us what happened!”

  Peter said the first words that came to mind: “Hit and run.” Miraculously, that seemed to satisfy the person who’d been demanding answers. Either that or Peter looked and sounded so much like someone in shock that they simply figured they weren’t going to get any better answers out of him.

  “In shock” would have been the correct diagnosis for Peter. He was still processing that Harry had followed his father’s path so completely, all driven by a desire to kill Peter, and hadn’t quite made it to the notion that Harry might not survive the night.

  The inquiring someone had vanished, and Peter—moving like a sleepwalker or a man in a trance—walked through the double doors. Harry was lying on the gurney a few feet away. They had yanked out the defibrillator paddles from a crash cart and positioned them on Harry’s chest.

  “Clear!” a doctor shouted. Verifying that no one was touching Harry’s body, the doctor triggered the paddles and Harry’s body violently spasmed. Peter watched, trying not to panic and not succeeding.

  “No response,” said the nurse, checking the readings.

  “Recharge and go again!” the doctor snapped.

  At that moment, someone noticed that Peter was standing in a restricted area, and two orderlies descended upon him. He offered no resistance as they pushed him from the room. The door swung shut, blocking his view of what was going on.

  He felt stricken and terrified and guilty… but not guilty because he had caused the injury that had landed Harry in the hospital. No, it was guilt because Harry knew Peter’s secret, and if Harry died, then the secret died with him.

  The terrible truth was that Peter’s life would be much easier if Harry Osborn died here in the emergency room. That realization produced not only guilt, but self-loathing. What kind of person was he, to dwell on the notion that someone’s death would be personally convenient?

  The kind of person who’s concerned about other people. What if Harry recovers and he decides the best way to get to you is through your loved ones? Why not? Norman figured out that I was enamored of Mary Jane and played upon that. If Harry dies…

  No! He’s not going to diet Peter angrily cut himself off. He’s going to make it! And… and we’ll get it all worked out somehow.

  How?

  Somehow! Now shut up!

  He leaned against the wal
l, feeling as if his soul weighed a hundred pounds. He glanced at the clock. Still well before dawn. Peter rubbed the bridge of his nose, fighting fatigue, and decided that this had to be the longest night of his life. He briefly wondered if anyone was having a worse night than he was.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  THE LONGEST NIGHT (PART Two)

  Dr. T. Alan Chafin hated his job.

  What the hell was he, a scientist of his standing, doing testing a particle accelerator in the middle of the night? He should be home in bed, spooning with his wife, who was beginning to make loud noises about feeling like a widow thanks to the hours that her scientist husband was keeping. He would keep assuring her that things were going to change, and in one respect, he was right. They did keep changing. They kept getting worse, thanks to the increasing paranoia of Quest Research’s upper management.

  Ever since that incident when the test of their new mechanized war suit was destroyed by some lunatic on a glider, Quest had been frantic about the prospect of industrial sabotage. So Quest had chosen increasingly remote places to build research facilities and opted for strange times of night to conduct the actual tests. The belief was that atypical procedures were required if they were going to stay one step ahead of those who were going to spy on, or trash, their endeavors. That this policy was beginning to weigh heavily on their staff didn’t factor into the equation.

  “Alan? You okay?”

  The question came from his assistant, Ashley Michel. She was diminutive, but with a solid frame, brown hair, and brown eyes. Chafin forced a smile and said, “Fine, Ash, fine. Just working hard on keeping everything together.” He sat back in his chair, which was woefully uncomfortable, and continued, “So… where do we stand?”

  “Capacitators are at seventy percent.” Looking over the instrumentation, Ashley checked the dials with her customary meticulousness. She was well-known for her almost obsessive attention to detail; if the readings were off by so much as a fraction, she would notice it. She wiped a hank of her perpetually unruly hair from her face. “Estimate full charge in… three minutes, seventeen seconds.”

  A third technician, Donnie Blaswell, nodded confirmation. Not that anyone expected Ashley to be wrong. “Do you think we’ll manage it this time?” he asked.

  The other scientists looked at young Blaswell with amusement. Donnie’s energy was legendary around the facility. He was referred to as Too Much Coffee Boy since most of his enthusiasm was attributed to an excess of caffeine. Curiously, Donnie didn’t actually drink coffee, but that did nothing to dissuade the nickname.

  “You mean really accomplish total demolecularization?” asked Chafin. He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Well, of…” Donnie looked surprised and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Of course it matters. I mean… total demolecularization… it’s…”

  “They’ll weaponize it,” Michel said sourly. “Just you wait.”

  “They keep saying it’s going to be just for molecular research,” Donnie protested, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  “They can keep saying a Big Mac is filet mignon, but it’s still gonna taste like a Big Mac,” a fourth scientist, Sean O’Shea, commented. He was walking into the lab and heard the tail end of the conversation. Tall and lean, he filled the room with his presence and said with quiet authority, “Gentlemen, ours is not to question why, and so forth and so on, you know the drill. Let’s get our baby up and running, shall we?”

  He always referred to the project as “our baby.” Chafin suspected it was because he was more comfortable calling it that than “our future weapon of mass destruction.”

  Giving in to the inevitable, Chafin propelled his wheeled chair across to his station with impressive agility, sliding across the floor like an accomplished skateboarder. “You heard the man,” Chafin called out. “Let’s get ready to roll.”

  His love for his job had not increased.

  Flint Marko felt his freedom slipping through his fingers like sand.

  For a brief time… a wonderful time… Marko had been certain that he had lost his pursuers. He was quickly disabused of the notion, however, as he heard the sounds of barking dogs in the distance.

  Damned police. Damned lawmakers. Why couldn’t they leave him the hell alone? Why did they insist on pigeonholing him into the role of the bad guy? Why couldn’t they see shades of gray in their black-and-white world of cops and robbers? It was like some big kids’ game to them, and he was the prize.

  He had eluded them sufficiently to get out of New York, jacking a car and driving into one of the more remote areas of the New Jersey marshlands. But he’d had to fill up the tank. While the pump was filling the car, Marko had gone to the bathroom, and when he came out, it was just his crappy luck that a cop car had likewise chosen that exact moment to pull in to gas up. The instant that the cop in the passenger’s seat glanced Marko’s way, he knew he’d been made. He hadn’t even bothered to go back to the car. He’d turned right around and bolted for the back of the service station. The howling protest of the cop car’s siren assured Marko that he’d been absolutely right.

  The back of the service area opened onto a steep dropoff, which, in turn, led into a heavily wooded area. Marko vaulted over the low mesh fence that lined the perimeter of the service area and rolled down into the brush. By the time the cops managed to get to the top of the hill, he was already sprinting into the woods.

  “Police! Stop where you are!” one of them shouted, and a warning shot snapped a branch off a tree just to his right. He ignored it. Instead he vanished into the concealing forest and ran headlong without the slightest care as to which way he was going or where he was going to end up. The only thing that mattered was that he got as far away from them as possible.

  The ground had slowly become boggier, and as the trees thinned out, the grass got taller. He was no longer able to run with assurance; instead every step felt like a tough slog. There was a full moon, thank God, but every time it went behind the clouds, he found himself tripping and sprawling over random branches, stones, and depressions in the ground that seemed to be there purely to make him fall.

  A gentle wind blew into his face, and only when he heard the sounds of the barking dogs behind him did he realize he’d had yet another piece of crummy luck. Because the wind was coming at him, it meant he was upwind of the dogs, and they’d have an even easier time tracking him. But how had they gotten his scent? Obviously: he’d left the car behind in the service station. They’d sniffed around on the seat, on the steering wheel, the gas and brake pedals. That would have been more than enough to put them on his tail.

  The grass was now chest high, the ground spongier than ever. Marko was soaked in sweat, his breath labored. The marsh air was so thick with moisture that he felt as if he were trying to breathe water. Still the dogs grew closer. How the hell were they managing that? They were lower down to the ground than he was; how could they be moving faster? It didn’t make any sense.

  He glanced back to see how close his pursuers were, half-expecting them to be no more than five feet behind, and slammed headlong into a fence. He staggered back and fell into the marsh grass. Sputtering and furious over this dead end, he scrambled to his feet and saw—in a dim outline as the moon once again scampered behind a cloud—the closely woven mesh of a cyclone fence.

  Marko had no time to retrace his steps, and certainly no time to move down the length of the fence to find a way around it. It could run a mile or more, and by that time they’d have him. One choice is no choice, his grandmother used to say. She’d had such high hopes for Flint when he was a child. He wondered what she’d say now.

  Actually, he didn’t wonder. He knew.

  Flint forced himself to take one deep breath to steady his nerves, then he sprinted toward the cyclone fence once more. He vaulted as high as he could and his fingers snagged into the upper links. His feet scrambled for purchase and found some minimal support, but it was mostly the str
ength in his arms that enabled him to pull himself up and over.

  Just as he reached the top of the fence, lights hit him from behind. Powerful flashlights, maybe even searchlights. There were shouts of “Halt! Freeze!” and other orders that Marko was only too happy to ignore.

  He clambered over and threw himself to the other side. Marko landed heavily, but the spongy ground cushioned the fall. As he got to his feet, he noticed for the first time that a sign was posted on the side of the fence from which he’d just come. He hadn’t taken the time to read it—probably a standard keep out warning, as if he cared.

  Marko started running once more. He discovered that he’d injured his ankle in the fall and was now limping badly, just to add to his aggravation. He heard the dogs barking at the fence, their claws scratching the links. He risked yet another glance, fully expecting to see the police scrambling over the fence after him. Instead they were remaining right where they were, on the other side, and were angrily shouting for Marko to come back before it was “too late.”

  Too late? Too late for what? For them to catch me? Screw that.

  To his surprise, the marsh grass suddenly disappeared, giving way to a paved, pitch-black field. Something had been constructed here. A private airfield, perhaps. Yes, that made perfect sense. He had stumbled upon a private airfield, and this might be the biggest break he’d ever gotten. All he needed was to find a pilot with a private plane and “convince” him to transport Marko out of here. He was certain he could do it; Marko was a pretty persuasive guy when he wanted to be.

  His luck was finally turning. Even his ankle was starting to feel a little better.

  That was when the ground went completely out from under him.

  With no warning at all, Marko suddenly found himself tumbling down a massive concrete slope, curved like a gigantic bowl. He desperately tried to find a way to slow his downward skid, but the walls were perfectly smooth. He kept falling, rolling end over end, until finally he skidded to a halt in the bottom of the structure.