Herein
will be violence, the aftermath of violence, a bit of dramatic irony, and a
dash of sappiness as…wait, no spoilers!
Should any of this offend, don’t complain later you weren’t warned.
It
goes without saying this takes place in the future (see author’s notes at the
end). How far ahead is strictly up to
Barry and the rest of the Pendragon’s crew; suffice it to say Mary Jane has
left the team at this point.
Constructive
comments, general praise, and polite disagreement can be sent to
yankee_pendragon@hotmail.com Any other
sort of comments can be directed to the hand.
And
off we go again…
Mary
Jane Parker followed the pair of dwarves who carried her luggage into her rooms
in the Crown Royale, her snoozing daughter in her arms. She thanked them both for their
attentiveness and requested they contact her regular nanny. The senior of the pair, one Briar Gravehar
of Barrowskeep, informed her this had already been done and Miss Harnesski
would be over in a few minutes. Mary
Jane in turn favored both with her winning smile (causing both attendants to
blush mightily beneath their full beards) and thanked them again as they
quickly let themselves out while she laid her sleeping child on the sofa.
Being
half-owner of one of the more successful hotels in London had its advantages;
near-slavish devotion on the part of the staff (who thrived as much on her good
humor and kind words as the silver she always slipped them for even the
smallest duties) was definitely among them.
It sometimes left her feeling a tad guilty, which was why she was such a
good tipper. It wasn’t as if she
couldn’t afford it. The fact it was
public knowledge she was a permanent resident of the hotel ensured bookings
remained healthy, which in turn ensured her bank balances remained healthy,
allowing her to remain a permanent resident of said hotel, which of course
ensured booking remained healthy.
She
often thought back to her early days in New York, skipping meals just to afford
mascara for interviews, living in a closet-sized studio in a back alley in the
Village, and going to damn near every cattle call around no matter the
product. Even after her name was
‘known’, it seemed she and Peter were forever struggling to remain
solvent. She’d lost count of how often
they’d had to relocate since exchanging vows.
It made a sort of sense in retrospect, teaching her in backhanded
fashion what to cherish and what to let go.
Now
she here she was: one of the richest women in Europe (maybe not on the local
Fortune 500, but certainly within the top 1,500), half-owner in one of the
city’s Five-Star hotels, her face on every third or fourth billboard from
Edinburgh to Prague, and recently-retired ‘member’ of the premier super-hero
team under this damned magic barrier.
She’d
give it all up in a heartbeat for the chance to be with Peter again, if only
for just five precious minutes.
Anna, with her usual sensitivity and sense of timing, chose that moment to stir
and fuss. “Its okay, sweetie,” Mary
Jane murmured, brow furrowed. Anna had
given her no end of worry in recent months.
Although remarkably fast in developing her physical dexterity and
balance, she had yet to clearly vocalize more than the usual toddler
babble. Just as well she was away from
Lyonesse; it was an open secret she had the entire team wrapped around her tiny
fingers, not entirely to the benefit of the team itself.
Surprisingly,
she hadn’t kicked up that much of a fuss at their departure. If anything, the toddler had been a tad
pensive on the train, but soon amused herself by turning her considerable
charms on the rest of the passengers before nodding off. Even the gruff satyr she’d shared most of
the ride with, who had introduced himself as ‘William Somethingorother’,
complimented Mary Jane on her offspring’s development and insisted he’d seen
her somewhere before. The fact their
train passed her billboards at least five different times went unmentioned.
Now
that they were home, it was rather inevitable she’d awake. The child rarely slept more than a few hours
at a stretch anymore, mirroring her mother in this (or was it vice
versa?). Mary Jane rubbed her back for
a bit as Anna turned her expressive brown eyes on her, the pointed towards
something immediately behind her. Mary
Jane looked about, seeing only the 52-inch television she’d had installed
shortly after moving in.
“You
want to watch some TV?” she asked her daughter softly. Anna’s insistent murmur was her answer. Mary Jane kept hoping that eventually she
would develop the same interest in books and science like her father. For now, her interest in science was limited
to the next episode of UFO Chasers and Doctor Omega, and even
then she only paid attention when some colorful monster made an appearance.
Still,
Mary Jane could deny her nothing, and so activated the television and moved off
to busy herself with a bit of unpacking until Miss Harnesski arrived. Anna made some cooing noises and resettled
herself in the cushions, looking ready to drift back off to sleep. The volume was down to a bare whisper, and
so Mary Jane had no idea what was on the screen, simply hoping it would keep
Anna entertained for a few minutes.
She
did however hear Anna murmur something that sounded like “Da-da.” Surprised, she looked over towards Anna, her
vanity case in her hands.
“Hmm?”
she asked the toddler.
“Da-da,”
Anna insisted, clearly but sleepily.
Confused, Mary Jane looked back to the television, surprised that she’d
tuned into the BBC Prime news.
“Breaking News!” was flashing on the screen with colorful (and familiar)
costumes seen in the background. She
squinted at the image for a moment, trying to make sense of the chaos on the
screen.
Then
she saw the source of the chaos.
Mary
Jane didn’t feel her cosmetics case slip from her suddenly nerveless fingers,
nor hear as its contents spilled noisily at her feet. Distantly, she wondered if there wasn’t now probable cause to
have her committed, seeing what she was certain she could not be seeing
in high-definition resolution just a few feet away.
Utter
madness was the more believable option.
Anna
simply muttered “Da-da.” Then dropped
back to sleep.
“…resistance
was by no means neutralized. Despite
the Avengers being forced underground and the declared neutrality of both
Subterania and Atlantis, ad hoc cells of norm and meta-human resistance sprang
up here and there. What these attacks
lacked in strategic oversight, they compensated for in tactical success and
unpredictability.”
“…the
invaders found their control over territory and the facilities they coveted far
more tenuous than appeared at first glance.
If anything, the lack of centralized authority and control over this
resistance contributed directly to its very success. How could one predict, never mind defend against an enemy who
wasn’t aware of its own actions?”
Excerpts
from The Victorious Dead: Metahuman Resistance to the Martian Invasion (2002
– 2021 CE) [New Random House, 2074 CE]
It
had been raining for three days straight, coming down in thick sheets. The persistent downpour was feed new life by
the thick emissions from the smokestacks of the invader’s recently built
facility, which stretched the length of the falls themselves. Fine details of the place were lost in the
darkness and rain, leaving in their place only the naturally menace all such
places always invoked.
Peter
Parker - Spider-Man - gazed at the facility through the pair of night vision
goggles he always carried now.
Crouching is the devastated brush that neighbored the Falls, he visually
scoured every available inch of the massive structure. “You getting this, Colonel?” he asked,
sub-vocalizing into the mini-mike on his throat. Even with the din caused by the heavy rain and the roar of the
Falls themselves, there wasn’t any point to taking chances.
“Clear
as high noon, Webs,” came the response only he could hear, his earpiece pressed
close to his eardrum. Indeed, the Stark
20K LLUV goggles he wore painted the world in hues of bright green, canceling
out both night and rain. Experienced as
he was, Parker couldn’t make heads or tails of the purpose of the facility,
other than to marvel at its sheer size.
He could make out the odd service droid (recognizable by its five legs
and abundance of tentacles), but otherwise saw no Martian machines in evidence. It was puzzling to say the least, even
accounting for the fact much of the region had already been ravaged, pillaged,
and otherwise depopulated.
“Any
ideas?” he asked into his mike.
“Other
than it’s building up a helluva lotta power?
Nope. SWORD doesn’t have
anything equivalent on file. Neither
does SHIELD.”
“So
I’m going in for a look-see, eh?” It
wasn’t really a question. Parker simply
donned his familiar mask and resettled the goggles over his eyes, then was
crawling off towards the facility. “Go
passive,” were the last words he spoke as he slowly edged his way out of his
hidey-hole and into the waiting shadows.
He’d
made some improvements to his basic costume in recent years, keeping his
trademark red-on-blue style intact (though the colors were now darkened to
where the red was darker than dried blood, and the blue was so deep it was
nearly black). The material itself was
an experimental Kevlar mesh that theoretically muted his heat signature to
where he’d be missed by passive sensors as well as afforded some protection
from weapon’s fire. His trusty
web-shooters had incorporated some of the improvements from Bill Reily’s
designs, and could now shoot web-pellets with the force of a high-powered
sniper rifle. He also wore an external
bandolier slung across his shoulder, Chewbacca-style, for extra web cartridges,
grenades, detonators, and survival rations that tasted worse than moldy
cardboard.
Never
let it be said your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man couldn’t change with the
times.
Even
so, even with nearly a decades-worth of experience in creeping about in the
shadows of tripods and hunter-killer fliers that made the nightmares of Wells
and Cameron (respectively) seem plain silly, it proved slow going trying to
approach the massive facility while keeping to the shadows. There was plenty of cover to use, true, but
experience had taught him long ago never to presume anything. Not surprisingly, it took him nearly two
hours just to cross barely ten meters to reach one of the many service hatches
he’d observed opening and closing on its surface, every watchful all the while
for the least tingle of his spider-sense warning of danger.
Yet
there was…nothing. Even when one of the
service droids popped out of its hatch, scampered over his legs to reach its
destination, and preceded to do its bit of work less than an arm’s length away,
even this didn’t elicit even a tickle of premonition at its appearance. He forgot to breath the entire time it was in
sight.
A
flash of paranoia had him wondering if the invaders had finally cracked the
secret and found a way to block his spider sense. When no hunter-killers or other death machines appeared, even for
several minutes afterwards, did Spider-Man manage to convince his otherwise
stiff limbs to get moving once again.
Not thinking about the panic that perpetually hovered on the edge of his
awareness, not thinking about how this was most certainly a trap and he would
never see daylight again, not thinking about how long it had been since he’d
seen his wife or spoken with another human being or felt warm and safe, not
thinking about any of these things allowed Parker to ease off the cover of a
decent-sized service port and wiggle his way in with a minimum of fuss.
The
goggles again proved their worth once he was inside, clearly illuminating what
was surely an otherwise empty and pitch-black corridor barely large enough for
him to belly crawl through. He hated to
think what might happen if a droid needed to move through there with him in it;
probably report him as a blockage, at which point the game would be up and he’d
be in no position to kiss is sorry ass good-bye.
He
continued crawling all the same. He was
soon sweating from anticipation and exertion, all senses alert and muscles
aching like mad.
He
continued crawling, fingers outstretched across the surface before him, feeling
and searching and grasping.
He
continued crawling, counting each precious breath as his last.
He
crawled on, desperate to outrace the panic that dogged him.
He
crawled on and on, feeling the curved walls of circuitry and wires and
instruments surrounding him press down on him…burying him.
He
crawled on and on and on…and nearly screamed in relief and borderline hysteria
when he reached the end of the conduit, somehow forcing open the hatchway
silently and calmly to allow him to exit.
No sooner had he shut the hatch behind him than it popped open again,
allowing one of the five-legged service droids to scuttle out. He might have laughed at his luck, if he
believed in luck anymore.
Spider-Man
blinked several times behind his now sweat-soaked mask, trying desperately to
comprehend the sight before him. “Hope
you’re getting this, Manning,” he sub-vocalized into the mike, managing to move
his neck enough pan across the length and breadth of the chamber, his goggles
capturing as much of the sight as possible.
He retained just enough presence of mind to re-position himself along
the wall where he emerged, so as to hopefully not experience any further
surprises.
From
his perspective, the chamber was…vast.
It was easily 200 meters from floor to ceiling and twice that
across. Despite the abundance of
circuitry, wiring, and machinery embedded into every available surface, its
cavernous space was otherwise nearly empty.
There were Skorpsmen and service droids in attendance, scuttling here
and there between read-out stations and other devices, though fewer than he’d
expected.
At
the center of the chamber itself stood a glowing column of…something. As best he could see there was no supporting
structure to it, either to give it shape never mind hold it aloft. This column hovered completely unaided just
above the ground, alight from some vast power within it.
Spidey
caught sight of something else hovering and moving near this column, and
carefully adjusting the magnification of his goggles for a closer look only to
feel bile build in his throat what he saw: a hover-disk, not unlike those used
by the Skorpsmen themselves, atop which rode a clear fishbowl-like container of
bubbling, reddish liquid, with tiny tubing and bits of instrumentation on its
surface.
Within
this container was a human brain, intact and pulsing within the reddish
liquid.
The
hoverdisk did not remain still, but zipped about almost recklessly from one
Skorpsman or instrument to another. The
clones would nod when it approached, presumably in acknowledgement of some
order, then move off to a new instrument or enter some adjustment to their
work. Parker mentally kicked himself
for leaving his snooper-mike back at the base; the collapsible dish was no
bigger than the palm of his hand, but could pick up the sneeze of a fly nearly
a mile away. It likely didn’t matter
anyway as he suspected the brain (whoever or whatever it was) was communicating
its orders through a medium other than simple vocal speech.
Shaking
away his irritation, Parker felt the first prickling of his spider-sense,
though more of a casual warning than a full-blown bells-and-whistles
alert. The column began to flare and
glow a bit brighter now. Studying it
through the magnification, he would swear he could almost make out images
coalescing within it: the shapes of tall buildings, trees in full bloom, even
people moving about casually and unafraid.
A
gentle chime rang out, along with a melodious babble that served as the
invader’s language. Tapping his ear,
Peter activated the translator function of his earpiece.
A
dull, metallic voice boomed in his ear.
[…HO….NO…ABLE…..EXPED….FORCE…TO……AG….A.]
Spider-Man
silently cursed again, though this time at the unavoidable time lag the
translator always took when activated.
The next words made him forget all this.
[REPEAT:
THRESHOLD NOW STABLE. GATEWAY
ESTABLISHED. EXPEDITION FORCE ONE TO
STAGING GROUND FOR INSERTION.]
The
sight of buildings within the glowing Threshold had crystallized further, and a
familiar Cathedral’s dome was visible now.
The sky over it was a unpleasant shade of pink and some of the
pedestrians looked like refugees from Hogwarts, but he put this down to simple
distortion created by the generation of an artificial gateway through sub-space
between two points in simple three dimensional space-time (possibly created by
the unfolding of a specific pair of Calabi-Yau Manifolds and then connecting
the ends, thereby bypassing inconveniences like several thousands of miles of
air and ocean and then-impregnable barrier of mystic energies…not to mention
terminating several years into the relative past…all the while likely causing
poor Albert Einstein to spin about in his grave at the sheer impossibility of
it).
All
these connections clicked in his mind in barely a heartbeat, the implications
coming equally quickly to mind.
“Threshold…? Jesus, god, no!” He couldn’t help but breath his horror aloud
as a trio of tripod scouts, smaller and quicker than their war-fighting
counterparts but equally as well armed, marched into view through an unseen
portal.
Never
mind that the Barrier had fallen years ago; if this worked the invaders could
make the Orson Wells broadcast in 1938 a literal reality, or worse!
To
his later shame, Parker would realize he was frozen in panic and outright
horror at the realization of what the invader’s planned. He was alone, barely armed, and in a nest of
Martians preparing to invade the past. It
was a perfectly forgivable, human reaction.
Fortunately, another electronic voice rang out clearly. It was spoken normal English, simply
magnified and modulated by normal electronics, and rang against the empty walls
as clear as bell’s echo.
“Now,
Parker!”
It
was all the prompting he needed, his body moving nearly independently of his
mind.
He
let go of the wall, shooting out a strand of webbing and swinging across the
length of the chamber with his left hand.
From his right he launched a volley of web-pellets, each hitting like
high-caliber bullets. Skorpsmen and
equipment fell victim to this first volley, which was followed quickly a by a
second volley, then a third. More clone
troopers fell; more machinery was smashed and began smoking.
Spidey
kept moving, desperate to keep from presenting them an easy target. He swung until he landed on another wall,
then ran a dozen zigzagging paces before launched himself into the air again,
shooting out a web-line only at the last second and recommenced swinging and
shooting. All the while the Martian
voice from earlier was calling out.
[ALERT. ALERT.
ALERT. ALL SECURITY CLONES TO
THRESHOLD CHAMBER. ALERT. ALERT.
ALERT.]
“Ah,
shaddup!” Spider-Man called, wishing he knew where the speakers were so he
could blast them. Several small
explosions from his earlier attack were heard far below him, and small fires
had broken out here and there.
[ALERT. ALERT.
THRESHOLD STABILITY: 88% AND FALLING.
ALERT. ALERT. EXPEDITION FORCE PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE
INSERTION.]
“Don’t
think so!” He let go of the web-line he
swung from, executing a complicated somersault-roll in mid-air to land directly
atop one of the scout tripods, then leaping off to land smoothly on the ground. The scout quickly reared back and struck
with one of its many tentacles attempting to skewer him. He again wait until the last second, then
jumped to land on the extended limb, giving the tripod’s unseen occupant an
equally unseen but evident grin. The
scout lashed out with its other two tentacle arms, both of which were easily
and effectively dodged.
Through
the gathering smoke, Spider-Man could make out approaching teams of Skorpsmen,
all of them carrying weapons of one sort or another.
[ALERT. THRESHOLD STABILITY AT 69% AND FALLING. EXPEDITION FORCE PREPARE…PREPARE…PRE…]
“Oh,
do shut up!” It was the same electronic
voice that had called him out of his earlier paralysis. “They do go on and on, don’t they?”
Spidey
had leapt again, purely on instinct, and landed next to the Threshold
itself. The Brain was hovering next to
him, hanging there calmly even as the Skorpsmen and tripods gathered and
surrounded them.
“I
do hope you aren’t thinking of doing anything heroic and silly, dear boy.” The brain’s ‘voice’ gave no hint to its
origins or gender. “I’d hate to think
I’ve gone to all this trouble just to have you get yourself needlessly killed.”
“What
the hell are you talking about? An’ why
aren’t they firing at me?”
“Oh,
they don’t dare fire this close to the Threshold itself. At least not yet.”
“Mexican
standoff, huh?”
“Martian
standoff, actually. None of which
matters right now.”
“Really?”
The
acidic sarcasm was lost on the brain, which blithely continued “What matters,
dear boy, is that you must leap into the Threshold itself within the next, oh,
two hundred and nine seconds.”
Parker
snorted and braced himself, extending both arms and readying himself to go down
fighting. “And why would I do that?”
“For
two simple reasons,” the brain stated, sounding oddly smug. “First, because the gateway that has been
opened leads directly to London, England nearly a decade into the past. Which, I might add, is where a certain lady
is.”
This
was enough to nearly send him jumping into the Threshold. He quickly caught himself, unwilling to give
either the tripods or the Skorpsmen troopers now closing in that easy a target,
never mind turn his back on a floating brain.
“What’s the second reason?” he asked tightly.
“One
hundred and twenty seconds left. The
second reason is even simpler: you already did so.”
“Excuse
me?”
“You,
my dear sir, contacted me directly six months ago and informed me of certain
future events…all of which have come to pass.”
“What
events? When? Who the fuck are you…?”
“You
warned me you’d ask that. Just as you
warned me to warn you the shooter on your right wrist needs to be reloaded.”
Parker
risked a glance at the aforementioned accessory, seeing it was indeed running
dry. Damned if he know how he could
reload it right then.
“You
also warned me to warn you to take a step towards your left right…now!” To his surprise, Peter did so, and thus
barely avoided the blaster shot that would have obliterated his head. He pressed himself back against the
Threshold, finding it surprisingly firm and unyielding. “One hundred seconds,” the Brain helpfully
reminded him.
He
felt himself trembling, whether with fear or anticipation he couldn’t say. “This…certain lady….is on the other end?”
“Yes.”
“If
you’re lying to me,” he promised quietly.
“I will hunt you down and…”
“Seventy-two
seconds. Too late for that.” The brain, which had been hovering at his
shoulder, suddenly moved into the path of another blaster shot. For a moment it seemed as if the
containment vessel had simply absorbed the blast, the hover-disk lurching
onwards unsteadily but otherwise intact.
The red liquid within the bowl however quickly began bubbling as if
boiling, sparks erupting all over it.
The brain’s modulated voice droned “As the bard said, ‘I die, O
Horatio, I die.’ Bye-bye!”
The
containment vessel exploded with more force and noise than so small an object
should have summoned. Parker
instinctively ducked as he and anything in the immediate area were showered
with broken glass and thick fluid. The
voice overhead started back up in mid-sentence, startling him once more.
[ALERT. THRESHOLD CRITICAL. THRESHOLD CRITICAL. 15% STABILITY…13% STABILITY…11%…]
Explosions
sounded off all around them, smoke and flame and chaos obscuring
everything. Weapons fire from every conceivable
angle lanced out, missing him entirely.
Peter
Parker shut it all out, tensed, and threw himself up and backwards.
And
screamed as the light tore him to pieces.
Behind
him a voice droned on in an alien language.
[THRESHOLD
CRITICAL. TEN PERCENT STABILITY. THRESHOLD COLLAPSING. THRESHOLD COLLAPSING.]
It
continued its meaningless warning, right up to the point when the Threshold
completely collapsed, and the facility housing it was reduced to its
constituent atoms in a blaze of cold light that could be seen for a hundred
miles in every direction.
“Of
the handful of resistance fighters who remained active throughout the Periods
of Consolidation and Full Dominion (2002 – 2005 and 2006 – 2015 respectively),
few are more admired or have generated more controversy than the solo operative
known as “Spider-Man”. Oddly, the
controversy lies not in his conduct or contributions to the resistance efforts
– which were nothing if not considerable –but rather in his location throughout
both time periods.
“…interviews
with Colonel Luther Manning of the North American Strategic Command, Manning
insisted on record that Spider-Man was continuously under his overall command
between 2004 and his disappearance and presumed death in 2012. While most historians agree this is perhaps
an overstatement of Parker’s relationship with the NASC, they do not dispute
the supporting documentation of that time period clearly showing Parker did
indeed undertake missions at the NASC’s direction.
“…does
little to explain the abundance of sightings of a ‘Spider-Man’ that were
contiguous with this time period and stretching into the late 2020s,
particularly up and down the eastern coast of North America and across Europe.”
Excerpts
from The Victorious Dead: Metahuman Resistance to the Martian Invasion (2002
– 2021 CE) [New Random House, 2074 CE]
Summersend
Eve, 2003
Morning
The
werewolves of the Grayfur Pack were patrolling its territory in the southern
edge of Hampstead Heath the night of the new arrivals.
They’d
fought the Football Wars (favoring Chelsea) against The Fang Gang (who declared
for Arsenal) the previous night and were still licking their wounds, quite
literally. Despite their preference for
sausage-n-chips and the other amenities of humankind, their lupine instincts
were not easily suppressed, and so consequently many of their number were
resorting to old-fashioned methods of wound cleaning.
It
was a bit embarrassing really; Chelsea had in fact won the match they’d gone to
war over and the Fangs had been outnumbered.
Everybody swore it was the bad curry they’d feasted on before the
festivities had commenced, leaving them all to a cub barely able to stand never
mind fight.
The
Pack’s leader, Guthrie, had made his opinion of them well clear the next
morning. His upbraiding might have
carried more sting if he hadn’t had to run behind the bushes to relieve himself
every five minutes. Still, the Pack was
sufficiently chagrined and sure to behave themselves for a bit. Guthrie had already been dragged in by the
law a couple times and hadn’t enjoyed the experience. He wasn’t anxious for a repeat of it and so declared the Pack
would keep to its territory for the rest of the week, and any Pack member
caught beyond these boundaries or causing undue trouble within them would be
cast out of the Pack, no appeal allowed.
So
the werewolves policed their hunting grounds and kept as low a profile as
possible. Pickpockets and the
small-time predators consequently kept an even lower profile and the local
population enjoyed a few days of relative peace.
Needless
to say, the Pack was as shocked as anyone when a five-foot, eleven-inch, spider
with just two legs and smelling like he’d emerged fresh from the grave
literally dropped from the empty sky right above them, yelling out in some
vaguely English dialect what sounded like either a prayer or an unbroken string
of curses wholly unfamiliar to their ears.
The spider managed to slow his otherwise lethal descent by firing off a
few lines of webbing from his man-like arms and bouncing himself off the many
trees, all of which cut his airspeed down to where he simply landed with a
tremendous “Omph!” Painful as it surely
was, it beat broken bones by a mile.
When
the spider didn’t immediately stir, the five Pack members who were in immediate
attendance felt it safe to approach to further investigate, though slowly. They noticed that the spider appeared pretty
much human: two arms, two legs and a definable head all originating out of a
central torso. If their noses didn’t
know better, they’d have sworn it was just some unlucky bugger dressed up in a
silly-arse costume. Oh, he looked like
a norm (silly clothes aside) and bled like a norm. But their senses caught everything about him that was hidden
behind the norm-shape he wore.
This
one was dangerous. The smell of smoke
and explosives, of sweat and adrenaline, sang out to them as clearly as fresh
blood on fresh snow. The agony of
bone-deep aches and pains, long ignored or gone otherwise unattended, fairly
radiated out of his slender form like raw heat. No one present was fooled for a moment by his repose; they could
practically see the tension within him, straining and ready to be unleashed.
Even
Barry Blackclawe, arguably the boldest of the lot, inched towards the fallen
form slowly. He had no inclination to
risk his neck further. He came within a
few feet of the figure and sniffed, once, doing so very, very quietly.
The
figure shot to its feet, grabbed his muzzle with a single hand, and snarled “Back
off, fiddo!” To his credit, Barry tried
to summon a snarl in reply, but couldn’t get it out around the quintet of steel
bands masquerading as fingers and thumb that kept his jaw shut tight. Neither could he stop the trickle of urine
that leaked out of his hindquarters at the sight of the large, blank eyes that
viewed him maliciously. He sensed his
fellows had (wisely) scattered and fled.
The
spider shoved him away with a snort of disgust, standing fully and taking in
his surroundings. “A dark forest. Great.
Wonderful. What’s next?”
Barry
found his voice and called out in humanspeak “Oi!”
“With
talking dogs. Just great.” The spider looked down at him, fists on
hips. “I’m hallucinating you, aren’t I? That brain in the goldfish bowl was lying
and now I’m dead or I’m hallucinating because I’m nearly dead. Am I right?”
Barry
of course had no idea what he was talking about. He opted for the aggressive stance. “Whotcher think yer doing in
our territory? You lookin’ t’muscle the Pack out ‘er whot?” The aggressive stance always worked with the
other packs and gangs.
The
spider just shook his head, pulling a small cartridge from the bandolier around
his chest and shoving it into the metallic bracelet on his right wrist. As he did so, he said “A talking dog with a
Cockney accent. Lemme guess, this is
London and you’re part of a gang of heretofore unknown species of dogs that can
talk, right?” Barry wasn’t sure which
was worse, the condescension of the tone or the echo of utter despair behind the
words.
He
bristled at both and yelled “I’m not a bloody dog, you git.” In a lower voice he added “An’ I’m from
Croyton, thank you. I jus’ sound like
this when oim like this.”
“Not
a dog?”
“No.” Barry Blackclawe (whose real name was Barry
Newton, but we won’t go there) drew himself up proudly as he could and
declared, “I’m a werewolf.”
The
spider just looked at him for a few moments, then upwards at the sky, then back
at him, then the sky, then back at him before saying “Ah. Werewolf, huh? Well, sorry about the ‘fido’ crack, then. Couldn’t see the fully moon through the
trees.” The condescension was back in
full force, giving the shape-shifter the feeling he was being humored as one
could the mentally damaged. Barry
briefly considered shifting into his wolfoid form, but suspected the spider
would just get even more sarcastic. He
was suitably surprised when he was asked “This is London, right?” There was a note of hope in those words.
“Er…yah,”
Barry nodded. “Yer in our territory,”
he pointed out uselessly.
“What
year?”
“What…year?” He had to think on that one. “Er…2004 or so. It’s been hard t’keep up with old calendar, y’know?”
“I
can imagine. 2004, huh?”
“Yah.” Barry was fairly trembling now because the
spider himself was fairly trembling. He
could feel the spider’s anxiety spiking, which in turn caused his own hackles
to rise. He tensed in anticipation for
whatever the spider did next.
He
wasn’t expecting the spider to bend at the knees, then spring upwards a good
five metres into the air, a strand of webbing shooting from his left wrist as
he did. The spider was gone from sight
seconds later, using the web-strands he fired from his wrists to swing away
like a refugee from a Tarzan movie.
Barry stood rooted to the spot, watching him swing away, confused and
not a little relieved. He said nothing,
even when his fellows returned with reinforcements, literally howling to know
what had happened.
Spider-Man
cleared Hampstead Heath in minutes, heart hammering all the while.
He’d
seen more war and death than he could ever recount in the last decade, and had
lost any sense of hope or happiness long ago.
When the Barrier of magic had risen over Europe, against all sense or
reason, he’d jealously guarded his hope that his wife was somehow spared
whatever horrors were underneath it.
He’d been working on a way to get across the Atlantic to ‘cover’ the
story when the invaders came. He had
thrown himself into fighting them, naively believing the war would be a short
one and he would soon be reunited with the one thing he cherished above all
else.
But
the invaders weren’t easily defeated, their weapons greater than imagined and
numbers legion. Battle after battle
after battle was fought. There were
days when Parker found himself hard pressed to remember a time when he hadn’t
been fighting their machines or preparing for the next battle.
He
soon lost any sense of time, the days and years blending together into one
engagement after another. The Avengers
and Defenders and X-Men and every other major team there had been disappeared
from sight and ready contact.
Somewhere along the way, he heard the Barrier had fallen and the
invaders had swarmed into Europe like locusts.
Sometime after that – it could have been a day or a month or a year
later, he just couldn’t remember – Parker recalled that was where she
had been.
He
couldn’t remember what happened after that, except the next thing he knew he
was standing atop the wreckage of a tripod, both fists soaked with both red and
green blood.
Only
the fact both hands, several ribs, and his right shoulder were broken kept him
out of action for the next several months; that, and the fact Colonel Manning
kept him doped up the whole time he was soaking in the nanite bath, letting
those microscopic miracles stitch him back together in peace.
He’d
let go of hope after that, going through the motions of life during wartime,
throwing himself into mission after mission and caring not a whit if he made it
through. Manning no doubt suspected this,
and so made it point to send on missions where the opposition was minimal or
the objectives were simply too vital that failure wasn’t an option. Peter understood this and did his duty each
and every time, patiently waiting all the while for his chance to finish it.
Now
he was web-slinging through a darkened forest, after talking a hallucination
claiming to be a werewolf in London.
He
was web-slinging through a darkened forest that was quickly thinning out, the
hallucination telling him he was in London and it was 2004, which meant that
the Barrier was still up and impenetrable and the invaders weren’t anywhere
near this place yet…and that meant…it meant…
He
tried to control that traitorous hope that threatened to overwhelm all sense
and control, knowing he’d fail, praying to whatever god would listen that he
would.
He
burst from the trees, landing nimbly atop the tiled roof of a conventional
house, finding himself surrounded by chimneys, roofs, TV antennas, and
streetlights. Beyond this, he could see
the lights of the metropolis beyond, modern skyscrapers and towers rising
upwards into a curiously colored sky.
Heedless
of who might see, Peter Parker pulled his mask off. There were tears spilling freely from red-rimmed eyes, his mind
desperately trying to disbelieve what his eyes and heart knew. He felt a stupid, dazed grin form on his
mouth, the grin soon becoming a smile; it was an unfamiliar sensation, to say
the least. He felt laughter begin to
bubble up in his throat, which tightened as more tears left him nearly blind.
The
roof tiles were hard and unyielding as he fell to his knees, head bowed as
emotions stronger than any he could remember overwhelmed him. Only a decade’s worth of harsh experience
kept him silent even as the urge to laugh-cry-just-plain-scream nearly choked
him.
Control
was slow to return, his tears and borderline hysteria eventually washing
through him and exhausting themselves.
Parker looked back up, breathing labored and body exhausted by its
internal war. The sun had risen and was
now visible through the pinkish haze that had replaced the sky. He blinked against its strength, having
spent too much time of late under cover or in the shadows, expecting the city
and forest to vanish like the dream he half-believed them to be.
But
the rooftops and streetlights and skyscrapers and forest and TV antennas
remained as he had first seen them. He
could make out figures of varying sizes and shapes and colors moving about the
street. He could hear the sounds of
traffic and daily life in the near distance.
Peter
felt like collapsing again, realizing the dream was real.
He
was in London!
He
was in the past!
He
was in London!
He
was…he was seeing a flying carriage…a flying carriage pulled by a winged
unicorn…a flying carriage which stopped in mid-air to allow another to cross
ahead of it…
A
flying carriage. Right.
He’d
just spent the last decade fighting a legion of rejects from HG Wells, counted
a guy who could turn himself into a walking three-alarm fire as one of his
closest friend and himself had the proportional strength of Achaearanea Tepidariorum and could cling to walls at
any angle; was a flying carriage pulled by flying unicorns all that difficult
to believe?
He
was laughing like an idiot. It could
have sounded healthy and sane, or hysterical and anything but; he really was in
no position to judge.
“Okay,
okay, okay,” Parker breathed to himself, gently fighting the laughter down to a
manageable level. “Okay, so, its
London, right? So, this was where she flew off to, right?” He tried to remember the details of those
long-lost days; they were fuzzy, to say the least. “Well, I think that’s where she went,” he mused aloud. “Let’s see what we can see.”
Decision
made, Parker pulled his mask back on and set off at a run, leaping upwards
easily and bouncing from rooftop to rooftop.
He didn’t stop until he came within web-shooter range of a building of
suitable size to web-swing from. It
proved to be a bit of a jog but not an unmanageable one, particularly after he
decided to give his legs a rest and so hopped onto the roof of the a passing
double-decker bus.
Doing
so gave him the chance to eyeball the local scenery close up. He’d visited London early in his career as a
web-slinger-cum-photographer, but those had been fleeting visits and thus
hadn’t left much of an impression.
But now…with antique carriages flying or hovering overhead…messenger pixies
zipping all around…goblins and dwarves and the occasional elf meandering down
along the sidewalks, some walking dogs or gargoyles, others hawking newspapers
from kiosks…a dapper looking couple dressed in the latest fashion, waiting to
cross the street, large umbrellas sheltering their pale skin and smiles filled
with razor-sharp teeth from the sunlight…that same sunlight bathing everything
in a surreal and sparkling light…
It
was jarring, even for him.
He
rode the bus until he was deep in the heart of the city, the distantly familiar
sight of Nelson’s Column coming in view.
Spider-Man quickly stood and shot off a new web-line, yanking it hard
and sending himself sailing upwards. He
swung his way between the buildings of London, trying to connect with anything
familiar from his past visits, something that might tease his memory enough to
connect with his last phone call to…to…
Peter
let go of the web-line and came to rest on an office tower. Hanging there, heedless of how far up he
was, he scowled deeply at himself and mused at the workings of his mind right
then. Why was it so hard to…to just…to
just remember her damn name? He
didn’t seem to have difficulty remembering much else; he could absorb technical
details by studying a schematic for just a few minutes, could assemble and set
the detonator of a shaped charge by touch alone, he could even the path he’d
taken since waking up in that stretch of forest.
So
why couldn’t he remember her goddamned name? Had it been so long he couldn’t…couldn’t remember…?
Except,
of course, it wasn’t really amnesia that kept him from remembering, was
it? His mind instinctively shied away
from that train of thought. It didn’t
pay to go there, at least not just yet.
Resolving
not to think in that particular direction for a bit, Parker wall-crawled up the
building he was clinging to, quickly hauling himself up onto the roof. It was hardly the tallest tower around, but
it gave him a decent view of the immediate area. He still didn’t recognize anything…but damned if it wasn’t a good
view.
The
full magnitude of his task hit him then: he was trying to find a single needle
- whose face and name he couldn’t conscioously recall - in a haystack where many
of said needles were of decidedly supernatural origin, and unlikely to feel
much obligation to be of assistance. He
thought of simply presenting himself to the police, only to laugh at the image
this brought to mind. He muttered the
imaginary dialogue aloud.
“Hello,
Constable. I’m Peter Parker. Just arrived here in London and I’m looking
for my wife. No, sorry, can’t remember
her name. Yes, I’m sure she’s here in
London. How do I know? Because I was speaking with her when this
fucking magical wall cut all of Europe off.
Yes, I realize that was several years ago. No, I haven’t been able to speak with her since then. No, I’ve been in the States…how did I get
here? Well, you see…you see…you see I’m
really Spider-Man and I’ve spend the last ten years fighting a god-dammed alien
invasion that’s wiped out most of the rest of the world…no, I’m not
joking. Yes, I’m serious! Look, could I just fill out a missing
persons report or whatever you guys use?
Yes, I said I couldn’t remember her name…oh, calling the men in little
white coats, huh?”
Parker
found himself nearly cracking up as the scene played out in his mind’s eye,
right up to the appearance of guys with straight-jackets and subsequent
slug-fest that was sure to follow. It
made for a good laugh.
He
leaned back against the billboard that stood behind him, weary beyond easy
measure. Perhaps he really had gone
insane. Perhaps he’d been caught when
the Threshold collapsed and he was caught in some bizarre pseudo-dimension…
Maybe
he was just too fucking exhausted to think straight any longer.
Almost
against his will and certainly against his better judgment, he lay down at the
base of the billboard. The roof was
solid, gritty concrete; it might as well have been the softest bedding for his
abused and injured bones.
Peter
Parker drifted off to sleep almost instantly, the sounds and smells of the
strange city carrying him away like a child’s lullaby.
On
the billboard’s opposite side from where he slept, the image of a familiar
redheaded supermodel looked out over the city, her smile easily brighter than
the noonday sun overhead.
Evening
Mary
Jane had made it to the WC barely ahead of the wave of nausea that churned her
stomach, and managed to bend over the toilet just as her last three meals all
revisited her. She coughed as the
half-digested food mixed with bile and spit hit the bowl, gagging at the smell. She spat and coughed and spat again, the
last traces of the bile slowly dribbling from her mouth.
Still
shuddering from her reaction, Mary Jane sat back, eyes damp and thoughts in
utter turmoil. After collecting her
wits just enough to at least entertain the possibility that what was on the
idiot box was real for a change, she’d actually grabbed her coat and was about
to race straight out the door, only to stop dead when Anna gave a small
whimper. This naturally brought her up
short and caused her to color with shame.
She could almost hear her child’s two namesakes gently and ruthlessly
chiding her for nearly forgetting her responsibilities there.
Naturally
hearing those two grand old ladies again, even as momentary delusions brought
on by stress, proved too much for her; hence her worshipping to the porcelain
god for several minutes. Fortunately
for her already bruised dignity, she recovered enough to stand and greet Ms.
Harnesski as she stepped through the door.
The elderly Romanian matron tutted at the sight of her looking so pale
and drawn, promising in her thick accent to cook up a decent meal for them all
later once she saw to the child.
Mary
Jane put on a game face, making noises about fatigue and the like. She smiled a bit at the matron’s
not-so-gentle insistence she take better care of herself and reminded her of
how Anna needed her mother. This nearly
sent her running to the bathroom again.
Instead,
Mary Jane swallowed her nausea and mumbled something about needing some air,
tugging on her jacket and grabbing up an umbrella from near the door. She heard Ms. Harnesski ‘tut’ at her again
as she left. It wasn’t until she
reached the elevators that she realized she was holding the umbrella in a white-knuckle
grip, or how her shoulders were visibly shaking from the tension within her.
The
Crown Royale kept its old-fashioned elevators in operation, forgoing the mystic
portals that the majority of hotels presently used. This served to further distinguish it from its many competitors
and (supposedly) added to its already-formidable Old World charm and elegance,
not to mention ensuring the hotel employed a higher number of oh-so-polite
goblins to serve as elevator operators.
The operator of the one she entered was a fellow who came up only to her
elbow, the royal blue and gray velvet of his immaculate uniform somehow
complimenting his deep green skin. His
hook nose, bat-like ears, and pointed teeth hardly seemed frightening as he
said in a supremely courteous voice “Good evening, Mrs. Parker. Floor?”
“Ground,
please,” was Mary Jane’s equally courteous,
controlled-to-the-point-of-being-strangled reply. The operator gave her a curious glance, presumably puzzled by her
tone and body language. It was no
secret she was beloved by the entire staff, and news of her return to the hotel
had kept them hopping with excitement.
Seeing her like this was…disturbing.
The operator, who was of kindly disposition despite appearances, was
strongly tempted to ask what ailed her.
Fortunately for them both he was too respectful to do so.
They
reached the main lobby without further words between them, Mary Jane then
practically sprinting out of the elevator and across the lobby like a greyhound
springing out of the gate on the racetrack.
This drew some surprised looks from the concierge and a well-heeled
couple who were checking in, but otherwise went unremarked upon (at least
aloud).
Mary
Jane was grateful that she’d grabbed the umbrella, as it was darkening fast
outside and the weather looked ready to take a turn for the worse. It had been largely instinctive on her part,
three years of unpredictable English weather instilling a natural distrust of
any spell of clear skies or dry air.
She
was simultaneously shouldering her way through the revolving glass door at the
entrance and trying to undo the umbrella’s catches as she exited the building,
and so was understandably distracted enough that she nearly collided with
someone standing right before the doorway.
Mary Jane wrinkled her nose at the reeking, unwashed scent of the
figure, but retained enough manners to mutter an insincere apology.
Barely
half a dozen steps later, she was stopped dead by a voice directly behind
her. One that spoke every night in her
dreams and forever reminded her of her waking nightmares.
“Muh…Mary
Jane?”
End
of Interlude
Summersend
Eve, 2003
Late
Afternoon
Peter
woke slower than usual, which merely meant he was fully aware of his
surroundings in eight seconds upon awaking rather than his usual three. Outwardly he remained still and would appear
to still be sleeping, but was in fact reaching out with all his senses,
measuring and assessing his environment intuitively. He sensed he was alone (no sense of other presences nearby), that
it was several hours since he’d laid down (judging by the angle of the sunlight
upon him), and that he must have been several hundreds of meters above the
ground (given how the odd feeling air pressure on his ear drums). This lead him to remember where it was he’d laid
down, the tension within him draining off.
Then
he remembered where he was. This
had him springing to his feet and pressed back against the rear of the
billboard he’d sheltered behind, eyes wide and heart pounding hard.
He
looked all about, taking in all sights and sounds and trying desperately to
disbelieve it all. Screwing his eyes
closed, Peter knocked his head back against the metal of the billboard’s frame
several times. Not hard enough to
seriously hurt, but more than enough to confirm the objective reality of his
situation.
One
of the flying carriages that had given him a momentary start earlier drifted
overhead, then turned and sped earthwards.
Peter tracked it with his eyes, the rest of him held frozen by the
shattering realization the sight entailed.
There
was no escaping it: he was in London, likely a full decade into the past, under
the Barrier. More to the point, he was,
if not completely safe, at least well away from genocidal death machines from
the fourth planet. Of course, one wrong
step and he’d likely be falling through the Looking Glass and all the way down
the rabbit hole. He’d be having tea
with the March Hare and dodging the Queen’s axmen next.
As
if to reinforce this mental point, a small glowing sprite zipped directly into
his view. He could see it was wearing a
day-glow orange beret and miniature knapsack, the latter filled with scrolls
and letters. “Oi, mon,” it called out
to him, its Caribbean-accented voice easily carrying to his ears. “Yew be knowin’ where de Bradbury Building
is?” Peter could only shake his head,
once, and very slowly. “Neh!” The sprite drifted off, a miniature hand
scratching shinning dreadlocks as it got its bearings. It glanced back over its shoulder and
snickered “Nice ‘treads, mon.” Then it
was gone.
Peter
blinked several times in its wake.
“Okay,” he breathed to himself.
“That was weird.”
It
was becoming too much to take in again, so he sat down lotus style and leaned
back against the billboard. It was
reassuring there was something solid and immovable to put his back against,
unlike the rest of this impossible city.
Peter closed his eyes and pulled a protein bar from his bandolier. He barely recognized the mix of clashing
tastes and didn’t particularly care to contemplate them as he chewed. ‘Never think while your hungry’ had been
Manning’s advice to him some time back, which Peter took to heart after
learning exactly what he’d been stuffing into himself just to stay alive.
He
suspected whatever was in this bar was likely laced with enough caffeine to
wake a cadaver, given how he felt himself perk up almost immediately. Swallowing the rest of it dry, wincing as he
did so, Peter concentrated on the god-awful taste that lingered for a few
minutes. This gave him something else
to concentrate on as he tried to formulate a plan.
He
could always climb atop this damned billboard and try screaming her name…if he
could ever remember it, that is.
Peter scowled at himself and pulled his mask back on. Like that would even work!
Instead,
he sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt into the air, enjoying the rush
of the air as he plummeted earthwards.
There were flashes of shocked faces on his peripheral vision, but these
were largely lost as he busied his mind calculating his rate of descent and how
long he could hold off firing off a web-line.
Free-falling like this, exhilarating and suicidal as it was, gave him
the rare moments of freedom and peace he’d ever known. Manning always gave him hell for it, just
like all the other risks he tended to take.
Peter privately he suspected the cyborg was simply jealous.
At
some point he shot off a web-line and recommenced web-slinging, humming some
absurd tune to himself and trying not to think about practical issues like what
he would do when he ran out of webbing or needed to take a leak. A single raindrop tapped him on the
forehead, prompting him to pause momentarily to cling to one of the nearby
buildings. He paid no mind to the
secretaries and the like inside who stopped their daily labors to stare and
point in his direction, having eyes instead solely for the now threatening sky
overhead.
“English
weather,” he muttered to himself with a shake of the head. “An’ me without my umbrella-hat.” Dark and rolling as the clouds looked, he
didn’t sense any humidity to the air and ten years in the literal trenches had
given him a pretty good weather-sense.
Then again, there was something…off…about the sky (besides the color, of
course). Nothing he could swear by or
put a finger to, but there all the same.
“Maybe
the weather service was taken over by wizards,” Peter mused with a private
smirk before firing off another line and swinging away.
More
solitary raindrops fell here and there, each one heavy as a herald of the storm
to come.
Peter
paid them no real mind, concentrating what he presumed to be a southwesterly
route and still trying to come up with a workable plan of action. His journey was cut short however by the
sight of a pillar of lightning arcing skywards from the green expanse a few
hundred yards distant. Peter heard his
voice quipping, “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”
A
familiar hum of his spider-sense rang in his mind, this hum quickly becoming a
full alarm. This in turn lead him to
amend his course towards the park, knowing all the while he would be too late.
Fingers that could barely be seen in the shadowed room
drummed on the long table, each impact sounding with a delicate tink-tink of hollow glass upon the wood.
A voice that was human grunted into the receiver,
which was quickly returned to its cradle.
The elegantly dressed figure turned to his companions. What might have been a smile creased his
barely-discernable features, his skin catching the vague lighting both within
and without the room, causing it to twinkle like delicate crystal.
“Our guests have arrived,” he stated, his voice
sounding more like a distant and empty echo than actual words.
Late Afternoon
The few locals who were present in Hyde Park that day
and survived to tell the tale, would all describe the scene in similar imagery:
it looked as if the empty air itself were being torn open. The air was filled with an almighty din,
something crossing the simultaneous squealing of a thousand cat in agony with
ten thousand steel nails being dragged across thousands of different
blackboards. Those few witnesses who
had fled after the first few moments of this agonizing noise found themselves
bathed by the exotic and indescribable light spilling through the impossible
aperture.
The already threatening sky overhead became positively
hellish in comparison to the unnatural glow bathing the area as the ‘tear’
expanded on its own. The ‘place’ beyond
the tear itself, if such a word was applicable, seemed little more than a
constant swirl of colors and flashes of things that weren’t colors; several
went blind or catatonic by such direct exposure to what lay beyond, their minds
letting go of all reason as a result.
Those brave few who continued to watch had little time
to absorb this sight. Stepping through
this ‘tear’ was a pair of strangely shaped machines: saucer-like forms
seemingly held aloft atop a trio of strangely jointed legs. Several appendages
resembling large tentacles could be seen radiating from their metallic bodies,
these appendages whipping about in random gesticulations. There were no doors or windows or any such
opening that could be seen upon their otherwise smooth silvery hulls. Each stood a good fifteen meters off the
ground. The ‘tear’ closed up behind
them, though a completely different din replaced the horrible screeching almost
immediately.
No soon had the machines stepped free of the ‘tear’
than small explosions erupted across their forms. Smoke and sparks poured from the joints of their spindly legs
while their tentacle-arms contorted themselves in bizarre fashions. The sharp ends of the tentacles themselves
seemed to blossom open, becoming finely pointed digits that bore no resemblance
to fingers; each of these ended in an implement better suited for torture and
bloody murder. The arms flailed about
wildly, the implements scarring or more often breaking against the silvery skin
of the saucer-body itself.
Emanating from the machines themselves came a wholly
different noise than the screeching of the portal through which they’d
arrived. This one was only slightly
lower in pitch, but no less painful for it.
It was the cry of metal dragged across living metal, each stumbling step
either machine took was purchased with fresh, ever more desperate cries. Only the bravest, or most dumb-founded, held
their ground before this sight.
Sparks continued to cascade out of the saucers, their
once-pristine and reflective hulls quickly becoming pock-marked and
dulled. They nevertheless righted
themselves with a powerful effort, both standing erect and more or less
remaining stable. The saucers rotated
this way and that, more smoke issuing from their chassis through invisible
fractures as they moved, giving one the sense of a lost and confused traveler
seeking their bearings.
A particularly brave young soul dressed as a constable
with the Metropolitan Police Force took a single step towards the towering, smoking
machines, hand upraised as if prepared to offer assistance.
The closest machine suddenly lurched forward, one
tentacle snapping out with incredible dexterity and wrapping itself around the
constable’s torso. The young man cried
out in both surprise and pain as he was lifted aloft. Those still watching from the green were frozen at the sight of a
half-dozen whirling blades and snapping tweezers closed in on the helpless man.
All present would later swear they clearly heard the
same voice calling out “Ah-ah. Naughty,
naughty!” Dropping from the sky was a
figure dressed in dirt-encrusted red and black. This figure smoothly landed atop the second tripod, smoothly
somersaulting across its slick surface and vaulting upwards once more. He landed atop the tripod holding the
policeman, and threw an arm out in his direction. “Stay still,” he shouted, a pair of soft ‘put-put’ noises issuing
from his wrist.
A trio of small explosions hit the tentacle holding
the policeman, each barely more than a pinprick upon a solid steel wall. These nevertheless caused the appendage to
loosen its grip, allowing the young officer to wiggle from its grip
entirely. It occurred to him a second
too late that he was being held over twenty feet off the ground. Fortunately, his rescuer lost no time in
leaping from his newest perch, catching him before he’d fallen more than a few
inches.
The constable, PC Richardson, had no time to argue or
offer protest. His rescuer held him
tight as he executing a complex somersault as they fell, one that was too
stomach churning to think about never mind experience. They nevertheless landed safely on the
green below. Richardson would have
offered his thanks if so many terrifying facts hadn’t suddenly hit him from all
sides: these tripod machines were still stumbling about, their tentacles
lashing about even more wildly than before; his own near escape from those same
grasping and deadly arms; and the fact his savior was grabbing him by the shirt
and shouting something. Richardson shook
his head clear and asked “Er, what?”
“I said, get this park evacuated and call in the
Army! I’ll try to hold them here.”
Richardson pulled himself free and looked the newcomer
over. Recognition soon dawned. “Oi, aren’t you Spider-Man…?”
A lifetime ago he might have had a smart-ass comeback
to that. Instead he shoved the young
policeman with a final shout of “Move!”
Then he was off and sprinting back towards the stumbling machines. Richardson blinked several times and pulled
the radio from his shoulder, intent to do as ordered.
For his part, Spider-Man fired a webline as he ran,
catching the nearest Scout and using it to pull himself skywards once
more. He landed atop the damaged
machine and gave them both a quick once-over.
They weren’t in good shape, either of them. Between the constant sparking, smoking, and their general lack of
stability, he doubted either could last much longer; he was actually tempted to
simply find a quiet corner somewhere, sit back and watch the show. There was no telling how many civilians they
might kill in the meantime though, and he had promised the constable to keep
them contained. That had been largely
out of a habit he’d thought long dead.
“This is gonna be fun,” he muttered.
With a sigh, Spider-Man braced himself and started
waving his arms. “Hey!” he called out
to the other machine. “Is that a
dissection kit in your hands, or are you just happy to see me?”
The second Scout swung its unwieldy bulk around as if to glare at him. It then braced all three of its legs
underneath it and shot off one of its tentacles directly at him. He calmly stood there as the metallic shaft
sped towards him…only to step out of its way the split-second before it reached
him. He could feel the wind of its
passage as the point buried itself in the hull of its companion. An arc of blue electricity traveled from the
breach and across the tentacle itself, causing the attacking Scout to jerk and
lurch spastically for several seconds before it managed to pull its arm loose.
Peter himself was not idle during this. He pulled off his bandolier and fumbled
about in one of the pouches. The tripod
he stood atop recommenced its lurching gait, the hole just punched into it
smoking profusely. Peter went down on
all fours and crawled towards the hole, clutching the bandolier close. He stuffed the belt into damaged area as
tightly as he could, then crouched and threw himself off the hull shouting
towards the second tripod “Thanks, buddy!”
Barely a heartbeat later the side of the tripod
erupted outwards with flame and a powerful if muffled ‘boom’ that toppled the
machine to its side, where it lay still as more fires and small explosions
erupted within it.
The explosion also caught Peter, who was sent
sprawling to the ground with a painfully hard landing. “Ouch,” he growled, blinking away the
galaxy-worth of stars dancing before his eyes.
“Cheap-ass detonators,” he cursed while he shook his head clear and
regained his feet. His spider-sense
suddenly screamed and he blindly threw himself backwards, narrowly avoiding the
pencil thin laser beam that sliced into the ground where he’d been
standing.
His vision still foggy, it was all Peter could do to
keep dodging the laser by sheer instinct, letting his spider-sense guide him as
he jumped, ducked, somersaulted, and otherwise simply kept himself moving. Unfortunately, this led him to back into the
still-aflame wreckage of the first tripod.
He didn’t cry out, although the pain and surprise at tripping over the
dozens of pieces of metal, plastics, and otherwise was considerable. He quickly regained his footing, only to
slip on something wet that was definitely not metallic or plastic, this in turn
caused him to land on something that was wet and soft. It didn’t take much imagination to guess
what that was.
This time Peter did scream as he scrambled gracelessly
to his feet and was tried running again.
He frantically wiped at himself, all sensible thought lost at private
terrors he couldn’t clearly remember.
The pursuing tripod stumbled forward to loom over him, its laser-cutter
held at the ready. It tried to track
the frantic form beneath it but couldn’t establish a lock.
Within the machine itself, the tripod’s operator
gurgled an untranslatable curse. While
it was genetically incapable of what humans would consider real emotion, it
nonetheless quivered with something akin to frustration. The mission had been an absolute disaster
thus far – from the destruction of the Threshold to the loss of its companion –
and it recognized the singular cause of this.
The data had been literally hardwired into its genes during culturing
and decanting. Their species had no use
for individual names, unlike the myriad of races they’d encountered since time
first turned; there were only Drones, Enemies, or Food, nothing more.
And the individual jumping and squealing before it was
most certainly Enemy!
The frustration became overwhelming, and the on-board systems were still out of phase and barely functioning to regulate or otherwise dampen this unfamiliar urge. Hence it stabbed the fire control again and again, ignoring the warning claxons that sounded or systems lights that flashed dangerously all about.
Outside, Peter’s crazed
dance of hysteria played itself out, laser shots singing out and missing him
only by the grace of dumb luck. He
quickly realized his hazard and heeded his spider-sense, dodging the erratic
energy beams easily if not gracefully.
Inspiration hit at some point and he pulled a piece of the fallen tripod
loose, using it as an impromptu shield while the tripod zeroed in on him.
He threw a quick glance behind him hearing some
commotion, at once relieved and panicked to see a number of dark blue uniform
types lining up several meters away. He
also noticed some news crews and the like had set up shop and were likely
yammering away. With his luck they’d
caught his being hysterical a few minutes earlier. “News at fucking eleven!” he whispered to himself, panic stabbing
his heart a moment later at the realization the tripod would now have an
abundance of new targets to shoot at.
He’d seen too much death. No more!
With a hoarse scream, Peter threw aside the metal
shielding him and, avoiding more poorly-aimed lasers, dived forward and rolled
completely clear of the tripod’s bulk.
As he did so, he managed to reach out and grab a piece of the fallen
machine he’d eyed scant seconds before, doing so largely on instinct.
Quickly rising to his feet, he realized he was
standing directly behind his attacker.
He called out “Hey, big boy!”
The tripod was already turning, though moving even more ponderously than
before. This gave him the precious
moments he needed to heft the bit of wreckage with one hand, bracing
himself. The possibility this mad
gambit would fail was acknowledged, but that was a distant and unimportant
consideration.
He stood ready, tensing as the moment approached.
The tripod finished turning, quickly bringing its
weapon to bear upon the now stationary wall-crawler.
Even before the laser had begun to move, a five-and-a-half
foot length of alien metal - easily weighing no less than two tons, bent and
twisted by explosive violence into a spike-like mass - was sent flying towards
the smoking, tottering machine. It
pierced the tripod’s already abused hull in precisely the correct spot, where
the tripod’s sole occupant resided behind a surprisingly thin sheath
polycarbide-reinforced skin, doing so with nearly half a ton of pressure per
square inch. The controller caught only
the sight of the metal shard speeding directly at it barely two seconds before
it hit.
The projectile itself buckled and broke upon impact,
as did the hull where it impacted, the force of it all pushing the entire
machine backwards a couple paces. The
controller itself died almost instantly, locked tightly into its control
harness and thus unable to escape as the small cabin caved in. All cerebral function ceased as its
overtaxed life support and nutrient supply systems terminated completely. This was reflected from the outside by the
tripod suddenly going still, its tentacle-arms freezing for a beat, then going
completely limp. Only the final, careful placement of its legs kept the machine
from tumbling down to lie beside its companion.
This stillness lasted the whole of ten seconds before
a final series of micro-explosions erupted throughout the machine, causing the
legs to buckle and collapse entirely, the rest of it crashing to the carefully
cut grass of the park in a lethal, smoky mass.
Peter Parker simply stood there throughout the second
machine’s death-knell, observing it all with a curious, distant
detachment. Even when the machine had
completely fallen and the dust and dirt settle to earth once more, he remained
standing, fists clenched at his sides and chest visibly heaving, looking every
inch the conquering hero before the wreckage of alien death machines scant feet
before him.
That one moment was captured a dozen times over by the
press and assorted by-standers that had gathered along the periphery of the
park, just beyond the hastily erected cordon of police who stood at the edge of
the green itself.
He was deaf to the snap of camera shutters, heedless
of the many photographs that were being snapped at the sight of him. Similarly the distant chattering of
television correspondents – both human and otherwise – went unheard. The flashing lights of police vehicles and
the hubbub of tactical squads maneuvering into place registered in his
peripheral vision, but were otherwise ignored.
Truth be told, only sheer exhaustion and oncoming
shock kept him from collapsing right then.
Only when a gloved hand landed on his shoulder did
Parker start from his shock-induced paralysis.
He swung around, both hands snapping up with clenched fists. It took him several moments to calm himself
enough to recognize the figure now standing before him. “Sorry,” he croaked in a tired, broken
voice.
“No problem, Web-head,” Hawkeye smiled, his eyes
utterly without humor. “Didn’t figure
you for the nervous type.” He took an
involuntary step back at the scowl he couldn’t see through the familiar
mask. Trying to keep his tone light and
disarming, he nodded towards the fallen machines. “Quite a mess, huh?
Friends of yours?” He winced at
the tastelessness of the jest, unconsciously tensing for whatever might come in
retaliation.
“Nope,” he breathed.
“Anything but.”
“This an invasion, then? Damn, but they move fast…”
“’S not…its not that either…”
Hawkeye looked his occasional teammate over carefully,
noting for the first time the changes in costume and web-shooters he wore. He also noted how taller the wall-crawler
was than he’d remembered, not to mention how painfully thin he was. Yet, despite this he’d managed to take down
both of those tripods single handedly.
A very, very unsettling thought occurred to him. “Er, you’ve been doin’ this a long time?”
“Years,” was Spidey’s only response, the exhaustion in
that one word speaking volumes.
Hawkeye nevertheless pressed “Lotta years?”
“What’s the date?”
“Ah, oh, Summersend…oh, uh…September 15th,
twenty-oh-three.”
“2003?”
“Yeah.” This
seemed to hit Spidey like a physical blow, causing him to sway unsteadily for a
moment. His jaw worked beneath his mask
as he steadied himself. Hawkeye himself
could feel the tension in the younger man, torn between wishing to offer
comfort while not daring to make any sudden moves.
The wall-crawler just stood there, head now tilted
skywards towards the approaching helicopters; American-built Apaches with the
NATO compass stenciled on their sides, maneuvering overhead to cover the fallen
machines with both chain guns and rockets. Military vehicles were starting to
show as well, disgorging the first troops called in to seal the area and no
doubt take possession of the wreckage.
Hawkeye considered his luck at being in London on his off-day; it let
him get in ahead of the rest of his team, but damned if he knew how they’d
handle this mess.
“I think the brass are gonna want to talk to you,
Webs,” Hawkeye point out, only to notice the other’s distraction. He was staring at helicopters overhead. No, Hawkeye quickly realized; at something
beyond the copters.
He actually squeaked in surprise when Spider-man
grabbed him with one hand, the other pointing upwards towards the city. He could see words being spoken behind the
mask, the jaw working but the words themselves lost under the wash of the
‘copters. “Say, what?” Hawkeye shouted.
“Do you know where she is?” The desperation in the question, communicated as clearly by the
rock-stillness of the shoulders as the volume of the voice itself, left the
archer stunned. Hawkeye thought
furiously who or what he was being asked about, doubting that simply claiming
ignorance would shield him.
“Wha…who?” he stumbled as Spider-man suddenly let him
go and gestured wildly to one side, the rest of him not shifting so much as an
inch.
“Her! Her!”
was the shouted response, the tone bordering on absolute hysteria. Hawkeye couldn’t pull his eyes from the
scene before him, tensing again and ready to reach for the bow on his
back. “Oh, fuck this!” was heard as
Spidey spun around and ran full title towards the edge of the park, leaving a
dumbfounded archer to stare on.
The various police and military uniforms were busy
arguing between each other and with the gathered press, and so barely noticed
the slender figure in red and black racing towards them until it was too
late. Even then, they barely had time
to raise the alarm before the celebrated wall-crawler vaulted over their collective
heads to land lightly upon a van with the BBC Prime globe painted on it. He didn’t slow one iota as he leapt skywards
from the van’s roof, firing off a web-line as he did and swinging out of
sight. A few of the camera crews and
photographers had vainly tried to follow his path, missing him entirely.
This all took barely a quarter minute, leaving a
bemused Hawkeye to grin in admiration.
“Damn. An’ I thought I was fast
off the draw.” He force the grin to
become a full smile as a collection of soldiers in full kit approached, their
weapons up and pointing in his general direction. Hawkeye raised his hands in plain view and growled to his absent
teammates “C’mon, guys. Get here and
save my damn life, already.” Aloud, he
greeted the approaching troops, shouting to be heard “Afternoon, gents. Great weather, huh?”
As is the way
of the universe, the clouds overhead chose that moment to let loose the light
rain they’d been holding since noon.
Some
distant part of his mind berated him for leaving the archer as he had, but
Spider-Man ignored it, just like he ignored the burning aches that ran
throughout his body and the lightheadedness that played havoc with his
coordination and balance. That same bit
of his psyche insisted he slow down for a moment and catch a breath. This was likewise ignored.
All that
mattered…the only thing in creation that mattered anymore…was that he get a
good look at the billboard he’d spied beyond the helicopters. He was half-certain it was nothing more than
a delusion, a mirage that would dissolve as soon as he found it.
Even
standing before said billboard for the better part of ten minutes didn’t fully
convince him otherwise.
It was her all right, easily ten feet tall and ten times more beautiful than he
pictured in his occasional dreams. Red
hair framing a flawless face with a 20,000-watt smile, all wrapped in a low-cut
evening gown that just screamed money and tickled long-disused parts of his
anatomy. “Old World Elegance”, as the
board’s legend declared, might as easily have referred to her as to the opulent
scene behind her.
The
light rain that was falling did nothing to dispel the mirage. Neither did his continued staring at
it. Even the sky darkening overhead and
the board’s spotlights coming on merely sharpened the image to crystal
clarity. This left him to conclude that
it was, in fact, quite real.
His
vision misted behind his mask, unfamiliar dampness chafing his cheeks under the
Kevlar fabric. He didn’t dare pull the
mask off or even blink, lest even this momentary loss of sight would cause the
board to disappear entirely.
After
some time simply standing there, staring and trying desperately to believe his
eyes and heart, Parker tried to focus on the rest of the board’s content. It was one thing to see her there, but finding her would still prove a task. Every little clue could only help.
“Crown…Royale…at…Victoria,”
he repeated aloud, squinting as he read the elaborate cursive script at the
woman’s feet. “Wasn’t that a James Bond
novel?” he mused aloud, scratching his head, then shrugging and racing off the
rooftop. He might not remember much,
but the professional courteousness of the British police (particularly when
compared to the NYPD) left a clear impression on him.
Even
with the rain, it took him only five minutes to spy one of the trademark
helmets of the MPF. Parker grinned to
himself as he landed neatly atop the streetlight the constable stood under and
lowered himself via a webline to hang upside-down just a little above the
policeman. “Er, excuse me?” he asked,
resisting the childish urge to rap the policeman’s helmet.
To the
constable’s credit, he didn’t start or jump or even bat an eye at the sight of
a strangely-and-somewhat-sinister-garbed figure hanging literally over his
head. Instead, he gave a polite salute
and said “Good evening, sir.”
“Hiya. Hey, I’m looking for, er, Victoria.”
“Would
that be Victoria Station, or Victoria Palace, sir?”
Parker
had to take several seconds, the constable’s unflappable manner somewhat
off-putting. “Er, not sure. I’m actually looking for a hotel around
there.”
“Which
one?”
“Uh, the
Royale or something.”
“The
Crown Royale, sir?”
“Yeah. That one.”
The
constable gave him a measuring look, then point off to his left. “That’s near Victoria Station, sir. About twelve blocks that direction. Can’t miss it.”
“Okay. Thanks, constable.”
“Not at
all, sir.” With that, the policeman
saluted again, turned, and began walking down the street, pulling at the radio
clipped to his coat’s lapel. Parker
himself quickly swung away, anxious to reach his new objective. He barely heard the constable call out “Oi,
wait a minute!” as he swung off.
He
covered the distance specified quickly, nerves once again raw and control
tenuous. He swung himself about almost
recklessly, skipping across the hoods and roofs of cars and barely avoiding the
odd flying coach with a single-mindedness that mirrored obsession. There were more than a few horns were honked
at his passing, each of which he ignored.
By the
time he reached the imposing sight of Victoria Station, barely five minutes
since speaking to the helpful constable, he felt his chest and shoulders
burning from the insane exertion.
Clinging to the side of the terminal building itself and squinting
through the rain for the smallest sign of his objective. Between the rain, streetlights, headlights,
odd sprite and fairy buzzing about, and the fact his head was starting to spin
(again) made everything just a little hard to process.
It took
a bit, but he ultimately found his target, the hotel’s subdued paintjob and
modern-looking exterior seemed at odds with the hype from the billboard. He could make out a wide awning with “Crown
Royale” written across it, beneath which was a thoroughly modern revolving door
with bay windows to either side. There
was nothing suggesting “old world” to its exterior, whatever the hell that
meant.
Parker
scratched his chin and tried to come up with a plan that didn’t involve causing
property damage and him screaming like a maniac, not that he was really in any condition
to do either anytime soon. Both
web-shooters were running low and the way his head felt he’d probably pass out
if he raised his voice any higher than a whisper.
Blowing
a frustrated breath, he wall-crawled to an alleyway opposite the Royale’s entryway. Fortunately, it was empty save two metallic
bins, a large one filled beyond capacity with stinking rubbish bags and a
smaller one labeled “Charity Clothing”.
Crouching behind the latter, Parker eased its cover open and felt about
as best he could, grabbing the first thing that came to hand and ducking back
into the alleyway as several pedestrians meandered past. Pulling it out, he nearly laughed at seeing
he’d grabbed an old fashioned trench coat.
He was half-tempted to go searching for a fedora to go along with
it.
Instead,
he slipped the coat on, noting how absurdly short the sleeves were, and pulled
off his mask, gloves, and web-shooters, stuffing them into the coat’s
pockets. He ran his fingers through his
tangled hair several times in an effort to make as presentable an image as
possible.
It took
several more minutes before he could screw up sufficient courage to leave the
alleyway, never mind cross the street.
Even when he managed to do both, even as he stood just a few feet from the
entryway itself, Parker was still trying to come up with something plausible to
say to the hotel staff to explain his presence.
The
point was rendered moot when he was nearly knocked aside by a hurrying form
that all but burst through the revolving door, a barely heard mutter of apology
ringing in his ears and pulling at his very soul. His sight centered on familiar red hair that streaked before him
and nearly out of sight completely before a
voice that both was and was not his called out.
“Muh…Mary
Jane?”
It was
plea and prayer and question and cry of despair. Of disbelief.
Of hope.
It
stopped the red hair in mid-stride.
It
caused the red hair to turn around, in its place shinning eyes and flawless
features…so beautiful it hurt to look at them…
He distracted himself from the pain by forcing his voice to
work again. “Mary Jane?” He didn’t have the strength to even wince at
how hoarse and weak he sounded…and more than enough to hold her to him even as
her own arms encircled him.
She
heard his voice, and prayed it wasn’t her imagination or a wild dream.
She
turned slowly, unwilling to dispel the illusion too quickly, too terrified to
hope her prayers had been heard.
She saw
him standing there, barely a few feet away: unwashed and emaciated, hair
tangled and streaked with gray, many days growth of beard, skin pale as she
might imagine death. His expression was
slack and unreadable behind the beard.
He shook with either fatigue or fear or fury.
Her
courage faltered, an upraised hand stopped from touching him lest he did prove
a ghost.
He spoke
again. “Mary Jane?” It was a weak sound, barely a whisper, and
every angel in Heaven singing with one voice could never match its beauty to
her ears.
Brown
eyes pierced her with a fear she would forever deny there; fear of rejection,
perhaps, or of further disbelief. Did
he think she would turn away from him?
Absurd! Impossible!
Fear
left her entirely at that, courage and strength no longer an issue. Her feet carried her forward of their own accord,
her arms reaching and gripping and holding him tight. She nearly cried out when her touch found not illusion but solid
flesh, and buried her face in a solid, familiar shoulder when his arms wrapped
around her. Her grip tightened
desperately as the last traces of fear and doubt fled, and she found herself
clinging to him as a drowning man might a bit of driftwood. She could count his bones through touch
alone now.
Tears
finally came, the dampness on her own shoulder further proof this was no dream
even as the rain soaked them both.
It
struck her she had yet to speak.
Raising her lips close to his ear, she breathed “Peter? Tiger?”
After
that, there were no more words, their lips otherwise engaged in a more
familiar, more intimate form of communication.
Many
hours later – after a lengthy shared shower that became a still lengthier
shared bubble bath, and several hastily prepared orders from room service that
were eaten with some considerable care, plus a fair amount of intimate activity
that will otherwise go unremarked upon – Peter found himself happily installed
in the largest, softest bed he could imagine existing. He had reached that level of raw exhaustion
that left one giddy and unable to sleep.
Having
his very naked and very, very beautiful wife wrapped about him every bit a
tightly as the silk sheets and thick comforter covering them both didn’t
help. It didn’t hurt either, and he
certainly wasn’t about to complain.
She
hadn’t let go of him, either visually or physically, from the moment they’d
first touched outside of the hotel.
She’d all but dragged him inside, through the lobby, and into her suite
without so much as batting an eyelash at the open stares and unasked questions
directed towards them by the staff and others that saw this. She’d run the shower, then the bath, rung up
for food and the like, keeping him in sight at all times.
He
hadn’t missed how she bit down her surprise and tears at the sight of his
external injuries as she pulled his uniform off, or how she attended to each
scar and burn and blemish that covered his body with a kiss or caress and
gentle tears.
In all
that time, almost no words passed between them. He would try to speak, wanting to tell her some nonsense about
how beautiful she was or something, only to have her fingers gently press
against his lips and silence him completely.
“Later,” she would breath in his ear, pressing closer to him as she did
as though she were trying to absorb him into her. Despite himself, he understood.
He
wasn’t sure he didn’t fully believe he was there either.
At some
point, he dozed off into a dreamless sleep, only to be awakened shortly
thereafter by his spider-sense suddenly going abuzz. A new and unfamiliar weight pressed on his side and he pried his
eyes open as spike of adrenaline hit him.
His mind
initially refused to process what he saw next: a small girl of no more than
three had somehow climbed up onto the bed and crawled over to crouch beside
him. He could make out all-too familiar
features from the diffuse lights outside, his heart hammering as he further saw
intelligent brown eyes squinting down at him from under an unruly mop of dark
hair, her small mouth grinning in the possessive way children do when given a
new toy.
There
was no doubt in his mind whose daughter this was. The thought alone was…overwhelming. Peter soon found himself struggling to breath, wondering if in
fact he had actually lost what tenuous grip on reality he had.
“Da-da,”
the child quietly declared, her smile widening in exactly the same way her
mother’s would.
Only
when his lungs made it clear they needed fresh oxygen did Peter realize he’d
completely forgotten to breathe. He
managed a few shallow breaths when the child laid herself down to snuggle
against him, still smiling that adorable and perfect smile of hers and fitting
against him with impossible ease. His
eyes were fixed on the ceiling above, mind awash in questions and body shaking
by this latest shock.
This
last part disturbed the child a bit and she raised herself, again quietly
informing her mother “Da-da ‘om, ma-ma.”
Mary
Jane sleepily reached out and stroked her daughter’s hair with her free hand,
eyes still closed and a smile mirroring the child’s. “Yes, honey,” she half-muttered, half-slurred as those barely
awake are wont. “Daddy’s home.” At this, both mother and daughter dropped
back fast asleep, leaving Peter to ponder this latest development alone.
But it
was all too much to process, however, a veritable feast of joys and shock after
a decade of famine. His head pounded in
protest against taking it all at once.
Yet Mary
Jane’s words drove home the only thing that mattered: he was home.
There
would be stories and explanations and complications and tears and laughter and
more tears and more laughter and bed-time reading and the thousand and one
small things that constituted daily life, but later. For now, he would sleep in safety with his wife and daughter
(marveling at how easy the thought came to him), and have no fear of nightmares
at their absence. His arms gathered
both to him, his eyes closing of their own accord as clean tears traced down
his cheeks.
Outside,
the city carried on with its daily life under a strangely colored sky.
The
Hierarchy (aka The Martians)
Early
Winter, 2012
The Hierarchy that ruled the One Race reviewed the
outcome of the Experiment with resignation, if such a primitive thing could be
attributed to beings whose capacity for crude emotion had long ago been purged
from their genetic structure.
Some
had argued from the outset the Experiment to be a needless diversion of
resources. Even when the outsider
offered its assistance, including carefully detailed schematics that the
Engineer Caste ajudged as accurate and practical, even then the argument continued
against it, turning less on the merits of the plan than the source. The outsider was recognized as one who would
swear no allegiance, and who in ages past was rumored as an actual adversary of
the One Race. The memory tanks however
were unclear as to the circumstances and finer details of the incident.
In
the end it was concluded the Experiment could proceed. The resources needed would be minimal and
the power requirements easily met.
Consensus was reached to utilize one of the Native Intellects to both
supervise and facilitate the work.
That
the facility was constructed with such speed and efficiency the voices
originally protesting the move were all silenced. The early success in matter transmission and reconstruction,
admittedly on a small scale and involving purely mechanistic constructs,
naturally accelerated plans for wider application. The Native Intellect charged with the Experiment projected a
61.4459% likelihood a full incursion would be possible through the void-bubble
that surrounded the densely populated region in the planetary northern
hemisphere. The relatively low
projection increased only to 72.7822% likelihood if the incursion force were
limited and minimized to the lightest Scout mechanics available.
Again
the outsider proved of assistance, providing the necessary codes and
calculations to the Native Intellect that allowed it to open a full Threshold
through the void-bubble. Only its
continued utility protected the outsider entity from removal as advocated by
the more proactive elements of the Hierarchy.
Once
approval for the smaller incursion achieved consensus and target set, only then
did the errors in the Experiment become clear.
One of the native resistors gained access to the facility and succeeded
in fatally wounding the Experiment’s delicate balances. Incredibly, remote monitoring appeared that
the Native Intellect itself actively assisted the resistor in its attack,
although there was no consensus on the reliability of this monitoring as the
facility was obliterated just moments afterwards as the Threshold was monitored
as having destabilized completely and simply collapsed.
Strangely,
The Hierarchy received signals along a weak tychon stream that resembled the
Scout’s transmission protocols. The
Tech-Synch Caste examined the recorded signals, achieving only an 11.04551%
clearance of the data. While it was
indeed a Scout transmission, the distortion was so extreme and the content
corrupted that further reconstruction of the datastream itself proved simply
unfeasible.
One
single image was successfully recovered: the native resistor who monitoring had
confirmed responsible for the destruction of the Threshold facility, initiating
a recovery of another native in darker garments from the hold of a Scout. Based upon this data, it was calculated
within a 42.670211% probability that the transmission was an actual space-time
image transmitted by a Scout. The fact the second native viewed wore unfamiliar
coverings indicated with a solid 69% probability that the image was transmitted
from beyond the void bubble, as it matched no known covering arrangement viewed
upon native life forms to date.
The
weakness of the datastream however made it clear the Experiment was a
failure. It did no good that a single
Scout could survive transit through a Threshold if it proved incapable of
providing a recoverable data dump. The
fact a tychon stream was used as the medium spoke even more strongly against
reconstitution of the Experiment itself (never mind the outsiders plans had somehow
been purged from the memory tanks of the Engineering Caste); such a
transmission medium should have been a final resort, lest it be detected by the
Great Houses lurking in Kasterborus, giving evidence their incursion across a
field foresworn.
In
the end, The Hierarchy agreed further research in such a direction would be
suspended, and all involved Techs and Engineers be purged and recycled. There was always a chance an Investigator
from The Agency might call for an accounting; better to leave no evidence to be
examined. There were more immediate
concerns in any case, and so the Experiment was soon forgotten.
Summersend,
2003
The
long room was opulent with expensive furnishings and thick carpet. The nighttime sounds of the city barely
filtered through the thick glass of the windows, thin slivers of diffuse light
coming through the slanted blinds that were drawn over the same.
Within
the long room were three figures, two men and a woman. The sole figure standing did so with such
absolute stillness as to be mistaken for unliving stone. “You are satisfied with events, I
trust?” There was a light, almost
inaudible buzz to the man’s words, as if they were spoken through a machine
than flesh.
“Oh,
quite so, dear man. Quite so.” So said the man seated at the head of the
conference table, his hollow features barely discernable in the weak light. “The wreckage will of course be confiscated
to the Toy Shoppe, and thus directly into our hands. Is that no so, my dear?”
This
last was spoken over his shoulder, to the slender figure reclining on the chaise
lounge against the nearby wall. She
was curvaceous, sensual in her minimal movements, snow-white hair falling over
skin the color and coarseness of concrete.
A hungry smile filled with sharp and unnaturally bright teeth flashed in
the dimness. “Yes, it shall,” she
drawled with a vaguely Middle Eastern accent.
“For which you have our…thanks.”
The
standing figure bowed ever so slightly at the waist. “More than a pleasure, ‘Mistress of the Dance’.” The reclining figure issued a catlike hiss
at the honorific. “But then, any benefit
gained by these events is purely incidental, no? I am after all in the service of other more…influential…interests.”
The
standing man moved to scratch his chin, his movements mechanically
precise. A finely manicured hand
stroked his short beard for a moment, an act that apparently caused nearly
invisible catches to release on either side of his head, this in turn causing
his entire face to seemingly fall off and clatter across the top of the
conference table. “Damn,” he said with
only mild annoyance, complex servos and antique gears working about fine
electronics.
The
seated man chuckled softly and said “You know, I could probably do something
about that for you. I am a doctor,
after all.” There was a note of genuine
sincerity in his voice.
The
standing man simply bent over just enough to reach the faceplate, carefully
picking it up and settling back into place.
“Unless you have some way of recalling the dead from the other side, my
dear physician, I fear my condition is of a decidedly permanent
nature. Epitaphs are, after all,
written in stone.” He turned ever so
slightly towards the reclining figure and plucked something from the breast of
his close-fitting black suit. “To you,
my dear. A small token.”
The
woman shifted sufficiently for the great, bat-like wings that had been folded
behind her to spring fully to life.
With the grace and ease of a cat stalking a mouse, she moved from the lounge
to the table, crawling across its width to lay upon her belly and accept the
proffered object: a small rosette of exquisite workmanship. She offered yet another hungry smile, making
a show of holding the flower to her nose and inhaling deeply.
The
seated man watched, eyes sparkling with crystalline delight. “A blue rosette?”
The
standing man snickered “Once I was the ardent supporter of democracy. For a single, long afternoon, that is.” With this, he bowed, turned, and walked off
with all the exactness and precision of clockwork. “My regards to you both, and to your brother, dear physician.” He offered this farewell without turning,
disappearing into the total darkness beyond the room’s only door.
“Alone
at last,” the winged woman breathed silkily, her fangs flashing in the light.
“Never
alone, dearest Salomé.” The hollow man stood so he could reach out to stroke
her rough cheek. He felt nothing as his
empty knuckles brushed across skin as gentle as sandpaper, befitting a being
such as he, who existed as little more than the fever dream of a dead
sorcerer. A throaty growl issued as
this simple caress moved from her cheek to her throat.
“Shall
we got to the Toy Shoppe tonight, Stephen?
Or tomorrow?”
The
empty and translucent features of Stephen Saunders, M.D. and Ph.D. of arts and
crafts forbidden, smiled and said “A single day, even two, will hardly matter,
dearest.” He tightened his grip on the
slender throat under his nerveless fingers, ever so slightly.
Salomé,
Dancer of Seven Veils and Sorceress Majestrix, arched under her
companion’s cold touch, her cat’s eyes rolling upwards in absolute
ecstasy. “Tell me,” she breathed,
suddenly and strangely desperate. “Tell
me again!”
“First,
we take possession of our new toys. I
divine their workings while you gorge yourself upon the energies they bathed
in.”
“Yes,
yes!”
“Then,
we make new friends and…influence…them to our needs.”
“Ah…ah…!”
“And
then…”
The
Dancer’s breathing was ragged and heaving now.
“And…then…?”
“And
then…then we tear the veils asunder, and make this place our own, personal
hell.” His hollow, echoing voice was
quite and calm, his crystalline hand seizing his writhing companion’s throat in
grip that would have been death for living flesh.
The
only consequence however was the Dancer’s cry of sensual delight, so powerful
it resounded throughout the empty floor beyond the long room.
Epilogue
Three
A
Missed Connection (aka The Spooks and The Bill)
It
took nearly two months after the events in Hyde Park before the various
agencies and offices put all the pieces together. This wasn’t especially surprising considering that how little
there was to go on, never mind how many proverbial (not to mention bureaucratic)
fingers in the proverbial pie.
The
Ministry of Defense of course took possession of the wreckage, quickly carting
it off to a “secure facility” under the supposed aegis of NATO; the fact said
facility happened to be headed up by an American two-star complicated matters
as MOD wanted to keep as close a leash on the materials as possible. Atop this, the Western European Union
Defense Office and certain august personages with OCSE were quick to make
noises about ‘joint security agreements’ that to that point nobody took
seriously. Lyonnese and Muir Island
were both quick to offer their ‘assistance’, which while respectfully demurred
for the time being.
Within
46 hours, the wreckage was safely stored away in the Toy Shoppe and the Gray
Book properly annotated. There were
those who dearly hoped that would be the end of it.
Phone
calls passed within the halls of power, reaching deep into the apparatus of
both security and government, and the focus shifted to the other anomaly that
had appeared along with the now-wrecked tripods. Granted, WHO’s file on Spider-Man was thin to the point of
worthless, and F.66 had nothing beyond three footnotes in two separate and
unrelated files. MI-6 and -5 had the
usual press clippings, but those contained on the typical tripe from Fleet
Street.
They
still had Barton and little more than six and a half minutes of footage from
BBC Prime to work with. Barton of
course was precious little help, his natural belligerence towards authority
making interviews needlessly difficult.
Even the INTERPOL liaison, who had some of the worst in the European
underworld quaking in their privates, couldn’t get much from him. He was clear on one point: the wall-crawler
had seen someone that got him even more agitated than the tripods. This was duly noted and quickly forgotten.
The
BBC’s footage wasn’t much better. It
was hastily shot, lacked perspective, and had been overly focused on the
machines rather than their dispatcher.
It did catch the latter’s confrontation with Barton and his wild
gesturing. The shrinks that were
consulted agreed the wall-crawler was agitated, possibly mentally
unbalanced. Beyond that, they couldn’t
offer anything.
The
INTERPOL liaison somehow took point from WHO, F.66, and pretty much everyone
else. He kept company with Nathaniel
Caine’s two-man office in the MPF and made sure everyone was copied on his
progress. Pete Wisdom made noise, as
was his wont, and so become their shadow.
Everyone else had better things to do.
The
week of Christmas saw the four of them standing at the site of the battle and
staring outwards in all directions.
Caine and his partner pantomimed the confrontation between Spider-Man
and Hawkeye, with Nate playing the archer and Charlie as the wall-crawler. The INTERPOL liaison grinned to himself and
glanced every now and then at the piece of crystal he had chained to his left
wrist. Wisdom simply looked embarrassed
to be there in the first place and smoked his cigarettes.
It
was Charlie who, in the process of flapping his arms like a fool, noticed the
billboard in the distance and recalled Barton’s statements. Caine followed his line of sight, as too did
Wisdom. It was Charlie who put the
pieces together, noting off-hand that Mary Jane Parker was known to be living
in London these days and it was her husband who held three awards for his
photos of Spider-Man. Wisdom growled a
couple bad words at the world in general while Nate squinted to make out the
wording of the distant sign. The
INTERPOL liaison, Inspector Judiah Golem, just grinned some more.
By
rights they could have gone straight to the Crown Royale that same day. But the Chief called Nate and Charlie in for
the usual afternoon budget pow-wow and Wisdom needed to do a cheap
song-and-dance for his nominal masters. Golem went home to read the tealeaves and check with his own
subordinates on ongoing investigations.
It
wasn’t until Boxing Day that they could line up their respective schedules and
make a visit to the hotel. They’d
agreed without speaking to keep this development as quiet as possible, each
having concluded the exact same thing and were (each for their own reasons)
unwilling to spill it.
As
they entered the grand lobby, Wisdom snickered “Charge of the trenchcoat
brigade,” pointedly ignoring the “No Smoking Please” signs posted. Golem, being the senior man, again took the
point and politely asked Mrs. Parker be rung.
He identified each of them in turn, ID folders duly offered.
“I’m
sorry,” the goblin at the front desk gurgled in polite reply. “But Mrs. Parker is no longer in residence.”
No
longer in residence? Wasn’t she
half-owner of the hotel?
“She
is the full owner, sir. She bought out
Mr. McGiles last month.”
It
was vital they speak with her. How
might we contact her?
“All
correspondence is routed to her solicitor, sir. You will have to speak with the manager, Mr. Brigglestallhoven,
who is presently out of the office.”
Surely
there is some way to contact her in an emergency?
“Again,
sir, all correspondence is to be routed to her solicitor.”
But…
“Mr.
and Mrs. Parker and their family are on extended holiday, sir, and quite
unreachable. Please move aside.”
The
quartet made way for an elegant looking couple of pale complexion and razor
sharp teeth. Wisdom looked ready to
make another go of it, but Golem shook his large head and cast another grin at
the crystal in his hand. He then
marched off for the entryway, letting his compatriots trail behind him.
On
the sidewalk outside, Caine asked “Riot, what next?”
“Check
wi’ her agent?” Wisdom suggested, only to see Golem shake his head.
“Likely
she’s bought out of her contracts and gone to ground.”
Charlie
blew a raspberry and began “So we…”
Golem
quickly cut him off. “We mark the case
as ‘unsolved’ and stick it in the circular file. Copy off everyone on the distribution list and get on with our
lives.”
“Just
like that?” Wisdom drawled, sounding not displeased with the idea.
“Just
like that,” Golem nodded, then turned and sauntered down the street. There was no doubt in the mind of the others
this would be last they would see of him, on this case at least.
Wisdom
watched him go for a moment, then turned to the pair from the MPF and
grinned. “Fancy a drink, gents?” The grin was returned twice over, and the
trio walked off, their footprints soon disappearing under the fresh-falling
snow.
Perhaps
the following happens somewhere far away, or not so far away. When or where or even if it happens isn’t
important.
Only
the possibility of it is important:
The
young wife returns to her family’s new home, the afternoon shopping in the car
seat beside her. She also carries
papers from her last doctor’s visit, nearly a week old. She brushes her wind-blown hair from her
eyes as she opens the envelope and reads the simple note. A trembling lip is taken between perfect
teeth at the news on that simple sheet.
Outside
can be heard giggles and squeals of joy and excitement. The blue waters of the sea can be easily
seen beyond the house, her husband and daughter now coming from there, coming
home. She had hoped to reach home
before they were finished so to join them.
The
child has grown quickly, her vocabulary as expansive as her energy. She is as restless and wild a spirit as her
mother was in days gone by, with an inquisitive mind to match her
father’s. It is still strange to see
him now with a beard and his hair so thick and tangled. Stranger still to see herself with a head of
blonde hair cut almost page-boy short.
She occasionally sees herself in magazines or posters, relieved and a
little wistful that her current look bares little resemblance to those
glamorous images.
Such
musing are cut short however, her husband and daughter half-stumbling,
half-running through the doorway that leads from the kitchen to the beach. They continue to laugh and jostle each other
as she watches, the picture of patience and indulgence.
The
sandy and damp pair catch sight of her standing there. “Hi, mommy,” the child calls, nearly
screaming in surprised delight as her father grabs her up and murmurs something
in her ear. “Okay,” she agrees,
scampering off down the ajoining hallway as soon as he sets her down and makes
for the full WC at its end.
“Everything
okay?” her husband asks. Still biting her lip against the news, she hands him
the doctor’s note. His eyes rake over
the page, going wide and slowly rising to meet hers. She steps forward into his arms, holding him as tightly as he
does her.
Her
whispered words are honey in his ears.
“Congratulations, Tiger. You’re going
to be a daddy, again.”
Cries
of joy and delight, both adult and child, could be heard across the empty beach
and were carried out to the wide sea beyond.
Author’s
Notes: Hope
everyone enjoyed the roller coaster.
I’m afraid that’s it for the Parker family; you can catch Mary Jane’s
earlier adventures in the regular “Pendragons” series and see the kid’s
(possible) future in “War of the Worlds”.
I’ve
dated this story as taking place in 2003 based upon several
considerations. First, it is ‘canon’
that the Black Mass Barrier went up over Europe on All Hollow’s Eve, 2000. It is likewise canon that Mary Jane was
trapped there from the outset; so presuming that she had only just become
pregnant when the Barrier went up, this means her daughter Anna was born circa
July, 2001. It is further established
in “Pendragons” that Anna is nearly two years old now, making it early 2003 in
the regular series. I’ve placed this
story a little later that same year to allow MJ and Sonja their time with the team;
who knows, perhaps Sonja is still there.
Here’s
answers to some of the questions I’m sure are going to be asked:
-Who
the heck are Salomé, Stephen Saunders, and the mechanical man with the rosette? The first two appeared in the early 1990s in
the “Doctor Strange” monthly during that bizarre “Midnight Sons” mega-storyline
our favorite sorcerer supreme was caught up in (along with the Nightstalkers
trio, Morbius, a certain Spirit of Vengence, and others). Salomé briefly displaced Strange as this
dimension’s Sorcerer Supreme and Saunders was a mystic simulacrum Strange
unconsciously created to build him a new powerbase while he himself recovered
from a particularly devastating mystical attack. Both were dispatched later in the storyline but not clearly
destroyed. For the story behind the
mechanical man, I direct you to the BBCi webcast “Scream of the Shalka” at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/webcasts/shalka and to the novel “The
Adventuress of Henrietta Street” by Lawrence Miles (if you haven’t already
guessed who he is, of course).
Doubtless we’ll be seeing more of them in the future.
-Who
the heck is Inspector Judiah Golem and what’s the deal with the crystal? Inspector Golem’s first (and thus far only) appearance in the
Marvel Universe was in a four-part “Tomb of Dracula” prestige-format miniseries
published in 1991, where he appeared amid the carnage the Lord of the Vampires
wrecks in Georgetown and Washington, DC.
He refers to himself as a ‘psychic’ and is evidentially familiar enough
with the supernatural world that he identifies Dracula himself as “your
proverbial bad penny”. Mayhap there is
more to the man than just an 87% clearance rate in cases and a bit of crystal
chained to his wrist. We’ll see in
coming stories.
-Does
this mean no more Red Sonja? You’re asking the wrong
guy. Write to Barry Reese if you’d like
to keep her around. I know I am!
-What
does MPF stand for? This stands for Metropolitan
Police Force, also known as the Met, Scotland Yard and New Scotland Yard. It shares jurisdiction over London alongside
the City of London Police and the British Transit Police.
-What
is “Summersend”? Given the prevalence of magick
and the rise of older, more primal forces and ways under the Barrier, it is
inevitable that calendar references would change with the times. ‘Summersend’ is simply another name for the
third week in September, denoting the official beginning of autumn in the
Gregorian calendar. Just be careful who
you say this to as I hear Pope Alexandro in the Vatican is ready to sic the
Dominicans on anyone under ‘pagan’ influences.
Again,
hope everyone enjoyed the ride. Any
further questions or comments can go to yankee_pendragon@hotmail.com.
Until next time…