Link to Chapter 1
Peter grabbed the cord suspended from the ceiling and pulled down the attic steps. For months Mary Jane had asked him to store the Christmas decorations. He always had an excuse, so the footlocker stayed in the corner of his workroom. Now that April was ending and the whole family was coming for his 60th birthday, MJ demanded that the box be stashed away. Peter obliged, having had his own reasons for putting off the chore.
Though the chest weighed sixty pounds, he hefted it with one hand. Uncannily balancing it on his fingertips, he maneuvered up the narrow steps. At the top, he hunched under the low hanging roof and flipped a switch attached to a support beam. One bulb flickered to his side and another at the attic’s far end.
Storage boxes and miscellaneous articles filled the cramped quarters. Peter found an empty slot and slid the footlocker into it. He turned and glared at the farthest corner. Sticking his head through the attic exit into the body of the house, he heard Mary Jane in the kitchen downstairs.
He crawled along the small corridor of mementos: boxes of awards that his children had received, trophies, his first chemistry set, a baby crib, and high chair. At the end, pink insulation covered both sides. Cautiously, he pressed his hands and socks to the wall. Slithering along the vertical surface to the corner, he uncovered a cardboard box hidden in the insulation.
He started slipping down the wall, losing adhesion. His power wasn’t strong enough to support his weight if he stayed still too long. Grabbing the carton, he scurried to the safety of the support struts.
Blowing dust of the box, he lifted the lid. My costume, web-shooters, and spider tracers. It’s been a long time. Mary Jane thought that they had been thrown away. Peter reflected on the last day he had donned them. On the tenth anniversary of the Villain Massacre, surviving super criminals had attacked the populace with a vengeance. Upon returning to the Big Apple to aid in stopping the madness, he realized his powers were fading. So focused on stopping an unknown villain, his spider sense did not react to an attack from behind. A projectile sliced his head and sent him over the edge of an apartment building. The Human Torch caught his unconscious body and whisked him to the protection of Avengers’ Headquarters. Peter barely awoke in time to avoid arrest at the hands of the Deregulation Police. That day he had hung up his webs forever. Sliding the cover back into place, he reburied the box.
#
Mary Jane ducked from the attic opening. Peter didn’t see me. Good. But he can’t get his mind off that costume. She passed his study, the guestrooms, and their own bedroom before climbing down the stairs to the living room. Every year around his birthday he sneaks into the attic and goes through his ‘hidden’ box. I wish that he’d just let it go and finally get rid of Spider-Man. The government’s made it perfectly clear on its stance against super-powered individuals. I don’t think Peter can cope with today’s bureaucracy. He needs something to take his mind off of that part of his past.
She snatched the family portrait from an end table. Their oldest, Mary Anna, looked as ravishing as MJ did in her prime and followed in her mother’s footsteps from modeling to acting. Richard was twenty-eight and rising to success in his brokerage firm. His wife, Amanda, held their two-year-old daughter Emily, the spitting image of MJ. Their youngest, Chrissy, huddled against her father’s side. She was always Daddy’s girl. A tear came to her eye. She and Peter had been very fortunate. He simply needs his family.
The ring of the vid-phone broke MJ from her pondering. “Answer,” she said and the flat panel television flashed to life. Chrissy’s face filled the screen.
“Hi, Mom,” she said.
“Hi, Honey,” Mary Jane returned, sitting on the couch so the television’s video device would transmit her image to Chrissy. “I take it you’re running late.”
“Yea. I should be leaving shortly.”
“Is that my girl?” Peter’s voice came from behind. Mary Jane spun around. Even with limited powers, he was still as stealthy as ever.
“Dad! Almost another year down the drain. And the big six oh to boot!”
“Don’t say that.” Peter smiled.
Mary Jane watched the exchange between her husband and daughter. Chrissy was their one child who could always raise Peter’s spirits. She was the most like him, from hospitality to strangers to interest in science. When she had been turned down for an internship at Pym Labs, Chrissy was devastated. Peter lifted her up.
Peter said Goodbye and shut off the receiver. He kissed Mary Jane on the cheek and trotted out to straighten the garage. She watched him disappear through the doorway. His grin revealed that Chrissy was the cure for almost anything that ailed him.
#
Peter drove into town just as the sun was setting. Even though he and MJ were considered to be in the suburbs, their community was a thriving metropolis. Forty-five miles south of the nation’s capital seemed like the dead center of Manhattan at the height of his Spider-Man career. After a quiet, two-minute drive, the landscape shifted from rolling hills and trees to large buildings and hordes of people. He and Mary Jane had been lucky to find their small acreage packed in between the expanding cities of Richmond and DC.
Exiting a thick traffic flow, he veered his Lexus into a narrow strip mall and parked in front of the butcher shop crammed between a tattoo parlor and pool hall. Peter liked this butcher’s cuts. If MJ were with him, he would have gone to a shop in a better part of town. By himself, he missed the adrenaline rush of living on the edge and knew that driving an expensive car in a shady part of town was the best he could do.
Climbing out, he activated the biometric security system. From the corner of his eye, he caught two bruisers gawking from inside the tattoo parlor. Ignoring them, he entered the butcher shop.
“Mr. Parker,” a gentleman his same age wearing a red-stained smock addressed him. “It’s so nice to see you. How’s your wife?”
“She’s fine, Bill. She has a cameo in The Court next Tuesday night.”
“The missus and I watch it every week. Tell her we said, ‘hello.’”
“Sure.”
“What can I get you today?”
“Well, Mary Jane’s leaving for a two day shoot next week and I need something that I can cook fast just for one. Also, we need…”
“Mr. Parker,” the butcher interrupted, pointing outside.
Peter turned towards the window. The two burly men from next door placed a round electrical device on the Lexus’ hood. A high-pitched squeal sounded from the car.
“Call 9-1-1,” Peter instructed.
“No problem. The police should be here in a few minutes.”
“Not the police,” Peter responded. “An ambulance.” The butcher pressed the emergency beacon under his meat counter.
Peter calmly walked outside, removed his glasses, and slid them into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “I’d advise you to remove that from my car.” Excitement welled. This was what he loved before he loved Mary Jane more.
“I think not, Grandpa,” one of them crowed. Both were at least fifty pounds heavier than Peter and less than half his age. “An old guy like you don’t deserve a ride like this. This is for the young gen X! What’s to stop us from breaking you in half and stealing your ride before the cops get here?”
“Me.” A smile stretched across Peter’s face. He had put away hundreds, if not thousands, of common thugs. Too many found their way back to the streets and he webbed them up repeatedly. With today’s laws, those apprehended were hypnotically reprogrammed in prison before release. About twenty-five percent returned to crime. Repeat offenders could never be changed. Their sentences behind bars were much stiffer. Years would pass before they saw the light of day again. I’ll do society a favor.
One thug took a swing. Even with his spider sense on the fritz Peter easily side stepped the blow. Pulling his punch, he clocked the attacker in the side of the head, dropping him. Nobody can know I have powers. He took a Karate stance, centering his attention on the other aggressor. The man pulled a revolver from his waistband.
No more fun. Have to take him out before anyone gets hurt. Lunging forward with half the speed of his youth, he batted the gun away and drove a fist into the crook’s midsection. The punk fell to his knees, gasping.
A round of applause erupted from behind. The shop owners congregated in front of their stores. “Good riddance!” one shouted.
A shockwave reverberated down the street. Screams followed. Leaving the would-be thieves on the ground, Peter walked to the curb to see what caused the commotion. A man streaked towards him on a hover disk, brown mask covering his face. Around his wrists were the apparatus once worn by the Shocker. A bulging sack hung over his shoulder.
“A technocrook!” a shop owner yelled.
“Call the deregulators!” another added.
That guy just robbed someplace. I have to stop him, but I can’t or else I might be suspected of having abilities. What can I do?
Peter’s dilemma was solved as three men wearing jetpacks chased the criminal. The members of the Deregulation Committee wore black battle armor and had various weapons for dealing with a myriad of super powers. The technology used by the Shocker wannabe was easy enough to counter.
Two of the deregulators fired energy weapons at the fleeing felon. In response, the Shocker spun around and unleashed a barrage of force waves. The blasts had no affect on his pursuers.
Panicking, the thief eyed the crowd in front of the shops and steered their way. Most scattered into various stores. The butcher was frozen in place. The Shocker dove for his prey, planning to use him as a hostage.
Peter leapt past his Lexus and yanked the butcher to the ground. As the Shocker swooped over them, Peter kicked the hover disk. The Shocker lost his balance and flipped over, crashing into the side of the pool hall. Within seconds the deregulators had him disarmed and in custody.
#
Peter pulled into the driveway just as Chrissy’s Honda appeared in his rearview mirror. Stopping outside the garage, he honked to signal MJ. Chrissy zoomed to the house. Peter met her at the car and gave her a tight hug. Though she lived and worked only sixty miles away in southern Maryland, the trip took almost three hours due to congestion. She did not visit nearly as much as Peter wished.
Mary Jane rushed to her daughter. The three walked arm-in-arm into the house, Chrissy in the middle. Though she had different physical characteristics of each parent, she clearly looked like Peter – brown hair, slight build, soft cheek muscles, and the hard Parker chin.
Over dinner, they discussed Mary Jane’s guest appearances, baby Emily, Mary Anna’s upcoming first lead role in a motion picture, and Chrissy’s work. Peter hid his cringe at the mention of Carnage, but MJ saw the nervous tick and suggested that he get Chrissy’s luggage.
From the front porch, in the dim glow of twilight, he shut his eyes and concentrated on his spider sense. Blocking all stimuli, he detected the faint buzz in the back of his skull. All was clear. Leaning forward, he propelled upward and somersaulted twelve feet off the ground. Knees popped as he landed. Arthritis flared. Ouch. He rubbed his legs. Not too bad for a Spider-Man my age.
Hobbling to the car, he withdrew Chrissy’s suitcase from the trunk, carried it up to her room, and dropped it on the bed. Before rejoining the others, he took two Arthririd. The aches in his legs abated within minutes.
#
Spotlights roved from the roof of Pym Labs, wandering in random patterns around the ten-story facility. If an unidentified object not programmed into the security system broke a beam, alarms would sound and the plant would be tightly locked. Only Janet Pym could unseal it.
The Green Goblin avoided the light rays from his jet glider. An upgrade from the original goblin’s arsenal, the glider still had its bat-like design, but was a bit longer and flatter. Lighter, its quiet motor was much more powerful than previous models.
Sophisticated technology cloaked the goblin’s presence from the building’s external surveillance radar and cameras, rendering him invisible to all mechanical devices. Creeping to an eighth-floor window opposite the main street, he glanced at a watch on the underside of his wrist, on top of a purple glove that stretched to his elbow. 1:43.
Earlier in the day, in the control room, Norman Osborn gained access due to his position on the Board of Directors. His pumpkin gas had rendered the guard unconscious and enabled him to observe Christina Parker as he planted a bug in the computer system to allow entry at this particular window at 1:45 a.m.
The watch beeped. The goblin pointed a finger at the base of the window. A tiny burst of electricity from his glove melted the metallic connectors monitoring the window’s status. Tomorrow he planned to erase all evidence of his infiltration.
The window slid up and he climbed through, leaving the glider stationary outside. Though pitch black, his mask allowed him to see. He walked around the Vice-President’s desk and opened the office door. Dim light shone in the hall. With his special lenses, he saw invisible lasers zigzag through the corridor.
From the satchel over his shoulder, he removed a small cylinder. Pushing a button on it, he held it out the door. A fog shot outward, filling the hallway. Undetectable to security cameras, the smog thickened. Norman originally designed the gas for the military to protect against laser gun attacks, but the goblin envisioned other uses. It sought out laser beams and slowed their progress. Once a beam was broken, hours could pass before an alarm would trip. By that time, the artificial fog would have evaporated and the beams would have resumed normal surveillance as if never broken.
Protected by his image repellent costume, the Green Goblin retraced Christina’s steps from earlier. At the Refrigeration door, the goblin removed his mask and submitted to the retinal scan. Next, he removed a glove and grabbed the door’s handle. The crank turned and Norman stepped inside.
At the security cam, he removed his vibration attachment. Then, he walked past the Carnage unit to an unlabeled cryocapsule in the rear. After unplugging the coffin-sized object, Norman had no trouble lifted it even though it weighed hundreds of pounds. He set it by the door and replaced it with a similar one from a storage closet.
Depressing the correct password, he opened the Carnage unit. Inside he pushed on one of the compartments and withdrew the vial of symbiote. With a minidropper, he sifted up a tiny amount and replaced the vial.
Instead of utilizing voice commands, Norman approached a wall terminal and removed his other glove. His fingers danced over a projected keyboard in a flurry of motion. From his pouch he removed a datcard and inserted it into a thin slot. The machine whirred a moment and ejected the card. Norman returned it to his pouch. Donning his mask and gloves, the goblin left with the cryocapsule, successfully expunging any record of his access.
Back in the Vice-President’s office, he climbed out the window onto the glider. Even with the weight of the cryocapsule, he maintained perfect balance. Eluding the spotlights during departure, he cackled insanely. Zipping haphazardly, he careened through the night. His plans for revenge against Spider-Man had begun.
#
Chrissy’s body jerked sporadically as she slept. Her eyes danced behind closed lids. Gore and bloodshed filled her nightmares. A menacing red face with jagged teeth pursued her as she raced along city streets, through an endless litter of massacred bodies. Carnage closed in for the kill. She froze, terrified.
Instead of ripping her with augmented shards of itself, a hole opened in the symbiote. Spreading wider, she saw that it was a hollow shell, devoid of a host body. The creature pulled at her thoughts, pleading with her to join in an unholy matrimony of the psyche. She resisted as it oozed over her, vying to override her mind and take control.
The dream represented the situation unraveling in her veins. White blood cells attacked the milli drop of symbiote that had infiltrated her bloodstream. The symbiote savagely fought them, converting them into extensions of itself. Slowly but surely, it multiplied, gaining control.
Chrissy awoke, her heart pounding. She went to the bathroom and climbed downstairs for some water, thinking that her work on the costume remnant caused her nightmare. On Monday she planned to look over Carnage’s files more closely. Finishing her water, she returned to bed.
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Go onto Chapter 3.
Not Yet Published (but I am trying) 