JMJ

CHAPTER THREE: THE SHADOW THAT BLEW AWAY

As a stone dropped into the sea, Austin felt plunged into an inky abyss. It was not his fault, he knew, but the irony dragged heavily upon him as an anchor keeping him from bobbing back to the surface. It could not have been more official the way he had managed affairs with Morris Bench. He had taken his time. He had worked hard and diligently over the course of weeks. Of course Austin was not unhappy that Mr. Dillon lived, but it did not make sense that Mr. Dillon should survive a night of rushed and fearful work on Austin's part, and Mr. Bench had not survived in the manner Austin had constantly told Electro that he should have gone about allowing Austin to help.

A few days after the tragedy, he found himself blown in on a breeze that sprayed him with street dust into a little café. He was half eating a bowl of soup when he received another text from the same anonymous source as before. This only added to Austin's already disconcerted mind.

Do you know why someone skewered the worm and made stewed octopus?

Austin glowered, and after a moment he let out a snort as he straightened in his seat.

His sudden start and noise aroused a nearby customer's attention. The way the man frowned at him, Austin thought it possible that the other may not have known he had been even there until just then. He was not the only one in his own world, apparently, for Austin had not fully been aware of the other either. Looking up at him with eyes meeting briefly Austin cleared his throat a tad sheepishly and lowered his head to the table again.

Someone was trying to scare him, but he or she was not doing a good enough job. So they knew who Doctor Octopus was. Anyone could look it up. It was no secret. Whole fan sites could be found dedicated to Doc Ock with every scrap of information a person could want. Though it must be admitted that who or what created Doctor Octopus from a nervous little scientist was unclear. Austin had for some time gone with the theory that it had been just an accident. As his father told him, it could not have been Spiderman as Doctor Octopus had thought, but there had been other theories, including someone other than Spiderman attempting to murder him.

Maybe the caller was just some nerd going overboard from one of those sites. Someone that wanted the return of Doctor Octopus without actually knowing what that truly meant.

Well, have I got news for you, thought Austin deleting the message. I …

His thoughts trailed off as he felt the eyes of that man again upon him. Slowly lifting his head and turning behind him a couple tables down across the way, he raised a questioning brow to the spectator. He knew that the man's eyes had never left him. And they were a pair of queer, dark, penetrating eyes. However, this time when their eyes met it was the other that diverted his direction self-consciously to his hands folded together on the table.

It was then that Austin noticed too that the man had nothing in front of him but an empty coffee cup. He did not have a newspaper, magazine, or phone to occupy him. He did not even have a menu to look at much less lunch, and the empty coffee cup could have been taken from the center of the table from next to its partner.

Alright, now that's just being paranoid, Austin told himself. You're the one acting strange. So that guy has nothing better to do than stare. Maybe he recognizes my picture from somewhere for all I know.

Not that he looked like the type to read science journals, but one never knew.

Rising from his seat then, Austin felt he had lost his appetite anyway, and leaving his pay he asked for a Styrofoam bowl to carry his soup away in. At the door he paused once more to glance back at the man still sitting at the table as a waitress came to wait on him.

He looked like he might have been pulled out from a picture of New York City construction workers eating lunch on naked beams fifty feet off the ground. Maybe the long overcoat and broad brimmed hat gave off the sense of retrospect, but it was a certain amount of keenness that had been in his eyes before he had diverted them that had made Austin think more of Alfred Hitchcock than other vintage imagery. Although the man looked normal enough now Austin could not get that image out of his head. It was as if the man had been posted there to keep a physical eye on Austin in case the phone messages were not good enough to make Austin leave town.

Shaking his head, thoroughly annoyed with himself, Austin moved on and pulled up his coat against a sudden damp chill breeze. It was a soggy sort of autumn day. Rain had come down in pours yesterday, and Austin had an umbrella with him in the likelihood that it would rain again today this afternoon.

It would be faster to walk than take a cab, for his apartment was not far away. As he made his way along thinking about the messages and the man at the café he also could not help but think if the man was a sort of spy he was doing a terrible job unless Austin was meant to notice him. Besides looking like he could get a job in construction easily, the man also looked like one who could easily be hired as a heavy. He hurried to the apartment faster now and did not slow down until he reached the steps.

#

"Their offering you a job," said Pr. Krafton as she picked up her things for lunch.

"Yes," said Austin slowly as he looked down at the upmarket letterhead above the new letter. It possessed the sort of logo circular in shape and design but without any real clear meaning behind it like so many others in such companies.

Seated in a chair in front of where it lay on the table in front of him, Austin cupped his chin in his hand but could not think but that he had been offered a job on the Death Star. Of course its original and quite corrupt owner had died by now, but in some ways it made it worse, for an already successful and corrupt business will be most-likely bought by an already more successful and corrupt businessman. Mr. Osborn's son Harry Osborn, the rightful inheritor, had long since left New York City to start a new business in Oregon that dealt with interior and exterior design and left scientific endeavors out of it. If even his son wanted to escape it, it was no doubt still an evil empire, and Austin knew well enough what the company was trying to do with him at the very least.

"They're trying to buy me out like a pharmaceutical company after someone comes up with a better drug than they offer," said Austin quietly. "They're the ones who created the epidemic, if you want to stick with that."

"But it was run by an entirely different group of people then," said Pr. Krafton. "And there's little proof that's where anything came from except that Globulin Green that created the Green Goblin. They could fund you better in your work anyway."

If there was one thing Otto Octavius never spoke about it was his work at Oscorp—not his pet project with nuclear energy and a mini sun, but the work that Mr. Osborn gave him. The silence was more than enough to explain it to Austin. His mother once said that he felt worse about Orscorp than about anything he had done as Doctor Octopus.

Pr. Krafton worked in the science department of the university and did not work normally with the scientists that Austin had grown to know. They were an independent agency of sorts. Dr. McKean had thrown the life saver to Austin in his work. Austin would not have gone anywhere with his project without his help. He was what one might call a "conspiracy nut", the type that believed in the dead scientist list and never bothered with the mainstream science that was shown on public television. Though perhaps a tad eccentric to the point that his good friends often called him the old mad scientist, Austin believed most of what Dr. McKean said to the degree that once independent one cannot trust those who would wish to subdue their work, put a price on it, and slap in packages after watering it down; and it was no conspiracy, Austin knew too well with or without Otto's telling him, that the super villains of New York City got their boost from Mr. Osborn.

"I'm happy where I am," said Austin.

"You still haven't been able to rebuild Dr. McKean's facility yet, and your time at the university is running out. Especially since …" Pr. Krafton's voice trailed off.

Without looking up at her, Austin now had his chin upon both hands as he leaned over the table on his elbows thoughtfully with his eyes on the window. "The death of Morris Bench," he muttered.

Pr. Krafton sighed. "I know it wasn't your fault. You can't blame yourself for that."

"The university does," Austin remarked.

"But that's why I think you should take this chance," said Pr. Krafton. "I believe in your work. It's awesome how you came down here from the northern wilderness to do this like some Viking warrior descending into the deep."

"How poetic," Austin laughed, and at last turned to the woman in question. "Then believe that it must remain independent to work."

Thus as Pr. Krafton departed for lunch, Austin wrote immediately back to Oscorp to politely decline from their invitation.

Besides, he thought with a little amusement in spite of the situation, if Dad found out I got a job at Oscorp, he'd hogtie me back to the 'northern wilderness' with the force of ten Vikings, ship and all.

And he smiled as he sealed the envelope kindly provided by the new improved Oscorp Industries with its sleek letterhead gleaming emerald-green as though in honor of its glory days when its master was one of Spiderman's greatest foes, and he went to mail his letter.

Once that had been settled he decided that after a quick lunch he would go for a walk to clear his head.

Central Park was the only place in New York City where he felt one could accomplish this.

He did not mind city life and had spent time in Minneapolis, Coventry and London, but there was the fact that his time spent in Duluth had touched a side of him that never left. From eleven years old to high school he had lived there so that it was truly where he grew up. Although Duluth was about as civilized a community as one could get, it had a backyard as wild as a new frontier for one who had spent early childhood in a city like Coventry. Over the lake and among the sharp stones and ragged pines seemed almost to be on the verge of swallowing the structures of man up. He was not exactly a hiker by nature, but one would have to be a fool not to want to see what such a landscape had to offer so that there was a time when he would go out among the forests very often even if only for scientific curiosity. But it was a sort of freedom that one does not realize one has until it is gone.

One might not think to miss rivers and trees, but trapped in the jungle of the Big Apple was sometimes a stifling and almost claustrophobic experience. Certainly one was never alone in Central Park, but the sight of people was not in any way bothersome to Austin. What Austin wanted was just the sight of natural green after so much artificial green in Oscorp's new logo. The other people never bothered him but today especially, they made it feel safer than otherwise at a time when he was trying desperately to shake the feeling that he was being watched.

But going to the park did not help in that regard, for as he was making his way down the sidewalk a familiar hat and coat caught his eye.

Austin almost staggered as he turned to look at that man, and yes, it was the man from the café. From far away he looked more like a cliché noir character than ever in his dusty colored coat with color standing up to shield the lower half of his face and a broad brimmed hat shielding the top half. Austin did not need to see his eyes to perceive that penetrating stare, but only for a moment or two. After being caught in the sight of Austin's vision for that time, the man then turned causally enough as though to leave. Austin watched him with scrutiny until he disappeared behind a corner of trees. Then with a disgruntled sigh, Austin went on his way again trying to tell himself that it might not have been the same person and that it was just paranoia, but just as he was getting relaxed again, staring into the fountain, now shut down for the winter, he felt again a presence very near.

It had to be just someone else staring into the fountain, but there was more room for personal space than that. At last he had determined to face whomever it was even if only to say good afternoon, but as he turned he saw the most frightful thing in such a situation. He turned and saw no one.

Looking around him left to right and behind, not one person was close enough to have fled in the time that Austin turned. He looked above him too in case the person had simply flown right into the air.

Clamping his mouth shut which had been breathing heavily since his start, he decided it best to go back to work. Even the sound of dry gravel beneath his feet startled him a little, and he hated being so jumpy. He had to have imagined someone was that close behind him. Maybe it was the wind. It had been blowing at his back. He had heard no breathing and did not remember footsteps. The only thing he felt was the presence of a shadow, a shadow that blew away on the wind when he turned around.

As he crossed the street from the park with a mind so wrapped up in itself he did not hear or notice a far more tangible danger than phantom shadows, for just as he was stepping out onto the street a truck was turning a corner. In that split second that both he and the driver looked up and foresaw the coming collision it was too late to stop it.

"Look out!" some voice roared from behind him far too late, but it was from above in which a third party intervened.

The truck skidded and almost tipped, but it managed to steady in time for the driver to continue on. It was a few moments with cars honking around him in the middle of the street however that the driver had to look about to see what had happened to the little man on the street. The truck was not so large that he could have been knocked underneath it so cleanly, but even climbing out of the truck there was no sign of him. Where he was spirited away he would not have known if it had not been for a couple shouts from around his corner where someone had spotted Spidergirl. The driver sighed with relief, but then frowned with annoyance that the little man had not been looking where he was going.

He even lost his hat, the driver thought watching a hat, which though familiar to Austin was not his, as it blew away long the curb.

Austin hardly knew where he had spirited away himself before he felt the solidity of a rooftop beneath his feet.

"You okay?"

Austin jumped in surprise to see Spidergirl, but he was quite relieved it was her, nonetheless.

"I saw you in the park," she said. "And I thought I recognized you as Dr. Octavius. You looked like someone was chasing you, but either way it's a good thing I saw you." She laughed with a very sanguine frivolity in which Austin although a little awkwardly joined in.

"Yeah, I could've been … run over," he cleared his throat and looked away. "Thanks. Uh. You can probably get me down now."

"Well, just wait a minute!" said Spidergirl. "What's chasing you?"

Austin looked up at her again where she stood staunchly with arms crossed.

"What's chasing me?" he asked.

"What's chasing you?" she urged a second time. "Something was chasing you wasn't it?"

"I … I don't know," said Austin. "If it was not your presence I felt behind me at the fountain I …" he shook his head. "I think there is somebody, but I don't know who."

"Tell me about it. I'm your friendly neighborhood Spidergirl. It's what I do." She sat down leisurely upon a pipe and patted the empty spot beside her. "Siddown. Take a load off. You look like you need it."

Austin made a face but consented.

"I don't know who exactly. It could be anyone," he said as he sat down feeling overall rather uncomfortable.

Spidergirl nodded. The mask hid her expression but her body language was loud enough to almost make up for it.

"He's been following me since yesterday. Maybe longer. This big man that doesn't look like the sort of person who could disappear easily. I think it's related to these stupid texts I keep getting, though," Austin explained.

With a shrug, Spidergirl said, "There are a lot of stupid texts."

"About my relationship with my father …"

"You mean Doctor Octopus," said Spidergirl, suddenly grave enough to satisfy the mood.

"Yes," said Austin darkly.

"I like what you do, Doc," said Spidergirl sincerely. "You're a very interesting person, and I hate to see you like this. You have such pluck normally and this is really shaking you up. I'll tell you what. I can't promise to stick as close as a guardian angel, but I'll keep an eye on you as much as I can, alright?"

"If you want to," said Austin.

"Like I said. It's what I do," said Spidergirl. "And you're in a dangerous arena, you know?" Standing up again, she paused. "Have you told the police yet?"

"Uh, well. No," Austin admitted. "I suppose that would be—"

"Come on," Spidergirl said. "I'll get you back down, and I'll watch you all the way home."

"Well, I have to go back to work first, but—"

Spidergirl laughed. "Right. Sorry. When do you go home?"

"I'll probably leave about five today."

"At the university now, right?" asked Spidergirl nodding. "I'll come back around then and be your silent guard dog."

Austin nodded slowly. "Okay then," he said still feeling altogether very awkward, but when he went home that evening, he felt it a great relief to know she was there.

The sound of a web shooter before he went inside his apartment made him smile at least. She kept her promise. Now if only something would be cleared up about this.

The next text or sight of that stalker I see I'll call the police.

His mood was lightening now, and he relaxed almost to normalcy again after supper and a Netflix movie. The music from across the street welcomed him into his room that night, and he looked out the window sleepily as he reached for the blinds, but just as he was about to shut them, he saw again the man.

His eyes widened as he stared down. Although little more than a silhouette unless a car drove by, Austin knew it could be no other man. He no longer had his hat, but he was standing across the street on the curb. Neither wind nor chill seemed to disturb him. Even his coat seemed to blow with less luster than anything else hanging about, and it did not seem to be a heavy coat.

Stepping back a few paces, Austin turned out his light on the nightstand, and then peered out again so see that the man was still there.

A small part of Austin's mind tried to argue that he might have come from the bar, but it was a feeble voice. The man stood like a statue staring up at Austin's window. Directly up at Austin's window and nothing else.

Austin glowered, and reaching for his phone he was about to call the police. No doubt the man would be gone before they arrived. He would disappear into thin air like some pixie from Neverland in a poof of pixie dust!

Wait …

Austin paused thoughtfully, his scowl dissipating.

Pixie dust.

Yes. That was it!

Well, minus the "pixie" part. There was nothing pixie about the situation unless it went back to the old stories in which not all fairies were pretty little ladies. Some ancient fairies were far coarser and carried far more bulk than Tinkerbell. Earthly elemental though, yes, like the dry road sand in his face before he had entered the café, or the dusty gravel beneath his feet when he turned from the fountain. It was a most soggy autumn, and yet Austin had been so caught up in his own fears he had not noticed. Nor had he noticed that that figure at the café, despite coat and hat, had looked very familiar if only from photographs.

Only one shadow Austin knew of could blow as dust on the wind. Now that he thought of it, the coat was rather sandy colored and his missing hat could have been a real hat, for Sandman had never been known to carry any color but on his body and the clothes he always wore.

For a long time Austin stared down at the man standing there like stone until suddenly he moved and began to walk away out of the light of the bar behind him. He never reappeared in another patch of light. One could imagine he only disappeared into the gutter.