SPIDER-MAN 2099 UG #3 AD
“Fall”
Writer: Drillnot (“Drillnot@aol.com”)
Editor: Pete Reilly (“pbreilly@tristate.pgh.net”)
Assistant Editor: Chris Partin (“CPartin232@aol.com”)
“One little, two little, three little Specialists...”
“Four little, five little, six little Specialists...”
“Seven little, eight little, nine little Specialists...”
Spider-Man stands next to the Stark-Fujikawa warrior webbed to a wall inside
the Alchemax offices, admiring his new
handiwork with the new wall-hanging. “Ten little Specialist children.”
The Specialist looks straight into the eyes of his enemy, his dishonorable
nemesis and spits into them. “This one will see
your blood flow with that of your employurk--!”
The brow on Spider-Man has discernibly furrowed in anger, even noticeably
under the saliva running down his mask. He
grabbed the samurai by the throat. “This one will shut his shocking mouth.”
With that, Spider-Man slaps the Specialist with
his free hand. “This one will not defy me when he is so clearly beaten.”
Another slap, and a small drop of blood flies from
the Specialist’s mouth. “This one will make use of his highly vaunted code
of honor when he has lost.” Another slap, a
trickle of blood from the man’s mouth, and now a scratch along his cheek from
the talon on Spider-Man’s hand. “This one
will not spit--”
“Spider-Man, that’s enough!” Conchata O’Hara has stayed at her post in the
Alchemax office, despite the battle coming
right to her, ignoring the klaxon of the alarms telling her and everyone else
they should have left the building over forty
minutes ago because of the building energy in the damaged Virtual Unreality
gate. She was not in danger from these
Specialists, not with Public Eye SIEGE units in the vicinity, and especially
not now with her hero and son Spider-Man to
protect her.
“Why? Look at this monster!” The Specialist webbed up on the wall is now
slumped forward, barely conscious, blood
running down onto his ornamental battle costume. “For all his nobility, he
is as inhuman as my fa--, uh, Tyler Stone.”
“Spider-Man does not kill needlessly, and there is no reason to start now.
There is plenty of other things for you to do, like
evacuate the rest of this building.”
“You’re right.” Spider-Man lets go of the Specialist and turns toward the
windows. Still the Specialists come, not finding
the police resistance that was initially present not long ago. The Public
Eye and SHIELD agents that were not murdered by
the Stark/Fuji samurais have helped lead Alchemax personnel away from the
building. “When Morbius attacked me, I started
to lose myself and forget why I was fighting. I just can’t believe what is
happening here.” He looks at his mother, wanting
some answer.
“You’re the hero. Don’t look at me. Do what you have to and we’ll worry
about figuring it out later. I’m going to leave
now. And,” with a glance at the soldiers running through the offices, “I’ll
get Mr. O’Hara out, too. Now go.” And with a
slight shooing motion, Spider-Man leaves with at least some direction.
*******************************************************
Fifteen minutes. He’s pretty sure every one smart enough to leave has.
There is one more thing Spider-Man can do to
prevent things from getting any worse. Even though the VU equipment is
damaged, it’s going to make one heck of an
explosion and its going to create a lot of damage for quite a radius from
Alchemax.
A few years ago, Tyler Stone organized a thinktank of some techs from inside
Alchemax and out to create better security.
Good old Ty was making plenty of enemies, at least he had the foresight to
realize that some of them may strike back.
Among some of these brainstorms was a radical shield generating system that
was actually meant to encompass the entire
Alchemax headquarters with a rotational multiphasic energy field meant to
keep out anyone or anything unwanted. In fact,
the idea was to even give each employee a special wristband which would be
attuned to the energy signature, allowing the
wearer passage through the shield while in use. They figured with this they
could even partition certain areas with certain
shield frequencies, thus only allowing certain employees with the proper
wristbands authorized entry.
But like most good ideas, this one was never completely followed through
because of money. The power needed to establish
the shield was incredible, and when cuts in the budget were needed the
security shield was the first to fall by the wayside.
Luckily for Spider-Man, those techs were efficient with what little time and
money they had. The shield generators are in
place and fully functional. They still need to be tested fully, and a full
VU wave blast should be quite a test, for you see,
Miguel O’Hara has been a successful scientist because of how he can look at
situations and problems from unusual angles.
He is not worried about what he can keep out, it’s what he can keep in which
will prove the shield’s worth.
All Spider-Man has to do is get to the Security and Protection Lab and let
loose the juice, and get his butt out of there.
Piece of cake, right?
*********************************************************
Nice idea, bad timing.
On his way to the S & D lab, Spider-Man is waylaid by a dozen Specialists.
Hiding in doorways, disengaging all the light
systems on the floor, including the emergency illuminators, not even the
wall-crawler’s accelerated vision was fast enough to
pick up on the stealth and speed of the Specialists. It takes all of them to
wrestle him to the ground. Weakened, not even
Spider-Man can find the strength to move them all. Two samurai pick up the
hero to his feet. The rest stand around,
brandishing their sword, looking for a reason to skewer this object of their
hate. One of them stands in front of Spider-Man,
and motions with an outstretched hand to drop Spider-Man to his knees. The
two holding him buckle his knees, and Spider-
Man is helpless but to comply.
“Look, you don’t know what you’re doing! I’ve got to get into that room!
All our lives depend upon--”
“Close your waste-filled orifice, defiler!” The one standing before him must
be the little cadre’s leader, although how they
can tell each other apart is beyond Miguel O’Hara’s comprehension. They all
look so much alike!
“Enough talk. This one says take him now!” yells one from the circle of
warriors around them. A few shouts of “Here!” and
“Aye!” escape before the leader holds up his hand. The hallway becomes
immediately quiet as the leader glares around his
group, admonishing with but a look at those who dared speak at this moment.
“Spider-Man,” the leader’s voice echoes through the hallway, much like
Thanatos was heard through the Virtual Unreality
portal not long ago, “do you understand the gravity of your actions?”
“I understand that gravity is proportional to mass and inversely proportional
to distance; maybe if you all went home and
left me alone this situation wouldn’t seem so bad. May I save New York and
all its inhabitants now?”
“Silence!” Like lightning, the leader whipped out his sword and swung it
within an inch of Spider-Man’s face. No, on
second thought, as a small rivulet of blood runs into Spider-Man’s mouth,
Miguel realizes that this one’s weapon is quite
sharp indeed. His mask, having been slit just under his nose, now begins to
sag, but not quite exposing enough for anyone to
determine that the Alchemax CEO is his own corporate savior. Biding what
little time he has left, Spider-Man stays silent.
“Your insolence only serves to further exemplify your guilt. Some months
ago, you faced the one in honorable combat. Only
through unsavory tactics did you escape his capture. Only through craven
cowardice did you lash out and strike a mortal
blow. Your murder justifies your own death. Perhaps then this one and his
Order may find peace once more.”
“Order? You mean you’re all related? ALL of you? Is that why you look so
much alike? Or are you just a giant gang of
thugs who have no identity beyond ‘this one’ so you--”
“You deserve no explanation!” the speakers eyes narrow into thin slits, his
skin becoming flushed with the increased flow of
blood from his anger. “It is because of you that this one and his Order have
come to reassess the balance in these times.
Only through your death may the scales return to equilibrium. This blight
upon the one and the Order can only be washed
away with the blood of the sinner.”
“No wait, I have this great detergent at home. It gets out the toughest
stains--”
Another slice, another trace cut across Spider-Man’s cheek, and the mask
droops off his face lower.
“Enough. This one will bear no more. It is our way that one must face his
maker before death.” The leader reaches to
remove the mask from Spider-Man.
What is it about the secret identity that Miguel O’Hara clings to so? His
brother Gabriel knows who he is. The Net Prophet
learned who he was when he saved them both from Thanatos, who has also
demonstrated knowledge of his dual identity.
Even Lyla, a mildly sophisticated holoagent, easily knew Miguel was under the
mask of Spider-Man by monitoring his
heartbeat and voice. Anyone who could operate such sensor equipment could
easily discern Spider-Man’s identity if they
knew where to crossreference the physiotypes. Didn’t he just reveal his
identity to two dangerous men who would kill him?
Nevertheless, the whole world does not know who Spider-Man is, and Miguel
O’Hara means to keep it that way, despite the
unmasking by two powerful and unpredictable characters already today. No,
Spider-Man must remain a mystery, so when
the Specialist reaches for the mask, Miguel O’Hara, CEO of Alchemax, son of
Conchata, brother of Gabriel, snaps.
“NO!”
With an unimagineable amount of strength, Spider-Man throws off his two
captors into the speaker of the Order, throwing all
three of them into the far wall. One’s skull makes a stomach-turning
crunch-squish, leaving a stain that would make the
cleaning robots curse out loud, if they were given speech processors. And if
there were a wall to clean by tonight.
The rest of the Specialists, well trained in the art of combat, pay little
heed to the enraged arachnoid, unsheathing their
weapons and charging at him at full speed. Almost, instinctively, Spider-Man
tenses both arms and dumps much of his
organic webbing onto the nine remaining Specialists, immobilizing them in
their tracks.
The strain of the “full throttle” web spray was not insignificant. Having
never tried such a maneuver in the past, the pressure
of the streams actually burst the skin around his wrists where he was used to
shooting single, gossamer-thin strands of
webbing for swinging or latching onto objects. The breaks would most likely
heal, especially given Spider-Man’s
extraordinary constitution, but the initial pain was blinding. The excess
webbing actually seemed to congeal over the wound,
preventing much blood loss.
“Now look what you’ve made me do. I have a good mind to kick all your
shocking heads in for this.” Spider-Man walks
slowly over to the leader of this group, still not moving after his little
flight and abrupt stop at the wall.
Behind him, the remaining Specialist were busily hacking away at the webbing
as best they could. They were making
progress.
“But, that will have to wait. I only have about ten minutes before this
whole place goes sky high, and there won’t be any of
us left to worry about your shocking honor. I suggest you get your sorry
bald heads out of here before that happens.”
Spider-Man walks off toward the S & D lab, looking and sounding much more
confident than he himself felt.
Behind him, Specialists were breaking free.
************************************************************
“I sure hope everybody’s out of here, because there’s nothing more I can do.”
Spider-Man stands in front of the shield
console (what would have been the shield console had there been enough money
in the budget to support the shield and its
technicians).
Push this button, flip this lever, turn this dial. The experimental shield
generator is now powering up. In about three
minutes, the energy shield will encompass the building, letting nothing in
nor out. All that’s remaining is to get his own UMF
butt out of the building.
Opening the door, Spider-Man suddenly flashes back to an early day in his
career as the harbinger of Thor. After being
chased by Public Eye flyboys and falling all the way downtown, Spider-Man
somehow woke up to find himself confronted
by the sludge of the undercity, these specimens calling themselves Watchdogs.
He stole their vehicle to get some help for his
injuries. Later he was cornered by them and the flyboys, only to be “saved”
by perhaps his most dangerous, most sadistic
enemy.
All those Specialists hacking their way through that webbing they were stuck
in were about to pounce upon Spider-Man, but
a blur whips by, bringing with it the smells of blood as the warriors fall in
their tracks, grasping their necks. Blood flows
freely from everyone of them through their fingers. The Specialists look up
at their executioner, and then look at Spider-
Man. Their eyes accused him, demanding he look and understand just what he
has done, although he has done nothing. One
by one, the Specialists slump over, onto each other. Miguel recalls his days
in elementary school when they showed videos
of Earth’s greatest wars and he remembers scenes of mass murders: they
simply piled the bodies on top of each other,
because there just wasn’t anywhere else to put them. Carcass upon human
carcass, all made dead for the pursuit of principle,
principle they probably didn’t even share nor care about anymore. Did these
samurai die for their principles, or were they
just recruited in one man’s vendetta?
The time for thought was over. There were two minutes to live or meet his
maker. He looked from the bodies to the man,
the monster, responsible. The Vulture just smiled.
“You--!” Miguel O’Hara is a well-educated man, but there is no word he can
think of which really captures just what the
Vulture is. With a furious scream, Spider-Man leaps at the Vulture. The
winged adversary could not have anticipated the
speed of that leap. Perhaps he was expecting some hero-villain repartee,
explaining each’s motives, goals and ambitions,
some brow beating, some veiled threats and blatant promises, and then they do
the dance. Not this time.
The two roll across the hallway, Spider-Man pinning the Vulture to the
ground. The stench of the Vulture, who no doubt fed
quite well on plump, juicy Uptowners, was nauseating, and Spider-Man reeled
back enough to allow the Vulture to turn him
over. Claws ready to dig in, the Vulture bares his teeth in the anticipation
of his greatest foe’s blood squirting into his mouth.
Spider-Man jams his knee into the Vulture’s chest, allowing him room to get
his foot underneath the Vulture, his toe talons
scratching the Vulture’s abdomen. Was the Vulture smiling wider because of
the pain? Spider-Man kicks him off, slamming
him into a wall. Immediately, the Vulture takes flight in the hallway, his
wings really unable to propel him properly.
The Vulture flies at Spider-Man, arm rearing bad to take one good slash.
Spider-Man jumps up at the precise moment to
deliver a raking uppercut that would have taken off anyone else’s head in it
sheer force. With talons bared, four deep
scratches run up the left side of the Vulture’s face, his ear no longer fully
attached to his head. The Vulture rolls off to the
side crashing into the wall, cracking it and splattering blood all over.
“You--!” The Vulture has never been injured so badly. He knows he needs
medical attention quickly. Spider-Man is
walking toward him, having forgotten just how little time he has left. With
a scream as primal as any jungle beast near death,
the Vulture jumps up, taking flight once more, catching Spider-Man off guard
this time, flying him at full speed through the
hallway and through the outer wall! Spider-Man is knocked unconscious by the
impact and the fact that he has been fighting
pretty constantly for almost an hour.
Continuing his flight, in the open air now with his victim, the Vulture feels
an oddness in the air around him. He doesn’t
know it, but the rotational multiphasic shield generator is encompassing the
building. It is not up to full energy, but it seems
to make the air thicker to the Vulture, and there is an odd tingling.
Figuring it to be fatigue and drowsiness due to blood loss,
the Vulture presses through. But by the time the Vulture reaches the outer
perimeter of the shield, it feels as if it is burning
his skin and it wants to trap him in the air itself. The element in which he
felt most free now conspires to ensnare him. This
self-proclaimed master of the skies will not have any of this. Mustering all
the speed he can, the Vulture presses his and
Spider-Man’s body through. In sheer agony, the Vulture makes it past the
shield, and falls limp in the air. There is no where
for the combatants to go but down.
*****************************************************************
“Where is he?” Conchata O’Hara stands outside the Alchemax tower. watching
as SHIELD, Public Eye, Specialists, and
Alchemax employees alike run out of the building. Too exhausted to fight
anymore, everyone stands huddled together,
watching the building, looking to see what will happen in the next few
minutes as the VU generator reaches critical energy and
explodes.
After people stop pouring out, there is a rumbling, shaking the ground, some
people falling over because they are too weak to
stand after this morning’s battle. Within minutes, Conchata O’Hara feels a
small warmth radiating from the air in front of her.
She walks closer and reaches up her hand, and pulls it back instinctively
when she feel the heat. Over to the East everyone’s
attention is drawn to two figures falling from the sky.
“O, no. O please, Almighty, no.” Conchata looks up, and even though she
can’t make out the figures, she just knows that
one of them is her son.
Her tears well up, but even they are paused when she hears a muffled. “Poof!”
A brief flash of light from somewhere up in the tower, and all mouths fall
slack. How often can anyone stand in front of an
explosion on the order of a thermonuclear weapon and just watch without fear
of death? Suddenly building debris is sent
flying in all directions, the top ten stories are sent rocketing upward, but
nothing flies further than the shield perimeter. The
debris smacks the shield, partly disintegrating, some of it just falling to
the ground in impotent destructiveness. The top of
the tower crashes against the apex of the shield, and then falls back down,
destroying the infrastructure of the tower.
Alchemax buckles, and suddenly falls over toward Conchata. Even protected,
people always flinch from incoming objects.
Conchata watches without passion, without fear, whether she knows the shield
will hold up or not, she doesn’t seem to care.
The building topples, crumbling against the shield and falling to the ground.
Thanks to Alchemax’s original foresight from the Security and Protection
thinktank, the shield held because its generators
were placed strategically around the Alchemax tower deep underground.
Conchata stares blankly at the heap of metal and mortar or whatever synthetic
materials they make buildings out of these
days. Her son, the amazing Spider-Man, saved us all, and he may very well be
dead. With this thought, Conchata O’Hara
drops to her knees and cries.
No one notices, because they are still stunned. They have been witness to
the fall of Alchemax.
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