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.