Chapter Seven
Harry Osborn awoke, puzzled by his surroundings. He quickly noticed his inability to move. He slowly came to realize that he was strapped down to some kind of operating table. His suit jacket had been removed and his shirt torn open. Tubes of various lengths were sticking out of him, and they appeared to be siphoning out his blood.
"Well, look who's awake."
Harry was unable to move his head, but out of the corner of his eye he could see the monstrosity that had called itself the Hobgoblin.
"Who are you?" Harry asked.
"Don't you recognize me, Osborn?" Hobgoblin asked. He stepped forward into Harry's field of vision. "Take a good look."
Harry squinted as he looked at the man's scarred features. Something about him did look familiar. Then it dawned on him.
"Oh my God… Macendale? Jason, is that you?"
"In the flesh," Hobgoblin said. "Or what's left of it, after you tried to kill me."
It all came rushing back to Harry now. As the Green Goblin, he'd thrown Jason Macendale into a vat of the goblin formula, then detonated a pumpkin bomb inside. He'd assumed that the blast had killed him, but Jason had apparently survived… and, though it had horribly scarred him, the explosion had somehow also infused him with the powers of the goblin.
"Jason, oh my God. I'm so sorry… listen, Jason, I can help you. The money I have from selling OSCORP, I can hire doctors to fix you…"
"No thanks," Hobgoblin replied. "I'd rather kill you. I think I'd enjoy that much more. Besides, I already have someone who's going to fix me up after this is all over."
"Who…?" Harry asked.
"I suppose he means me." Another figure approached from the other side of Harry's field of vision. As he stepped into view, Harry realized it was Lex Luthor. "Hello, Harry. Good to see you again. Sorry it has to be under these circumstances."
"Lex?" Harry gasped. "What's this all about?"
"Oh, just consider it a little science experiment," Lex said, gesturing to the tubes coming out of Harry's chest. "You Osborns were always great proponents of science, weren't you?"
Hobgoblin laughed.
"What do you mean? What are you doing to me?" Harry asked, starting to struggle against his restraints.
"You see, Harry… I've been determined for quite a while to get my hands on that Goblin formula. And I've tried, with little success, to duplicate it. And, well, seeing as there are no existing samples of it left, I had to think… where could I possibly get more of it? And then it dawned on me. It's in your bloodstream."
"What? No, it's not!" Harry cried. "I'm cured now. There is no more Goblin formula in my blood, not any more."
Lex shrugged. "I'm sure there are still trace amounts of it. Not much, probably. I'll need quite a bit of your blood to get enough to reconstitute it. I might even need all of it. That's not a problem for you, is it?"
"Lex, you sick bastard! Let me go!" Harry began thrashing wildly against his restraints.
"Relax, Harry. Dying of blood loss is a relatively peaceful way to go. You'll lose consciousness long before you actually die. It's a lot better than me letting Jason here rip your throat out, as I'm sure he'd like to."
Hobgoblin leaned menacingly over Harry and grinned, showing his stained, jagged teeth.
"Lex, you're insane," Harry lamented. "The Goblin formula brings nothing but misery. Why do you want it, anyway?"
"I have a very powerful enemy," Lex declared. He fiddled with one of the tubes, tapping it and straightening it out. "A 'Traveler' from another world, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. If I'm going to have any hope of beating him, I need something that will give me an edge. I've tried, many times… Project Ares might not have been such a dismal failure if I'd had this formula on my side. This time, though… this time I won't fail." Then he nodded to Hobgoblin. "Keep an eye on our guest, Jason. Make sure he's comfortable." He gave Harry a smile and a wink, and then walked out of the room, leaving him alone with the laughing Hobgoblin.
Some time later, Clark had gotten in touch with Chloe on her cell phone, and met up with her and Peter in the newsroom of the Daily Bugle. They were sitting at a computer workstation, reading the latest wire reports about the fiasco at the courthouse that morning. There didn't seem to be any new leads on who the mysterious Hobgoblin was, or what had happened to Harry.
"Mary Jane is in intensive care," Clark said, filling the others in. "They'd just gotten her stabilized when I left."
Peter put a hand on Clark's shoulder. "Thank you, Clark," he said, grateful to his friend for getting MJ to the hospital so quickly.
Clark nodded. He looked back and forth between Peter and Chloe. Something was going on… there was some kind of awkward tension between them that Clark could not figure out. They were facing away from one another, avoiding eye contact with each other and with him. Clark was puzzled, but did not have time to dwell on it.
"Listen," he said. "We have another problem. As I was leaving the hospital, I got a visit from Tony Stark."
"Stark?" Peter asked. "What did he want?"
"They never destroyed the fortress in New York Harbor. They just masked it somehow. Nick Fury was looking for something in there, and Doctor Garner tricked him and sent him to the Phantom Zone. They wanted me to help get him back."
"Oh my God," Chloe gasped.
"Peter, if they took Garner to the fortress, then he must still have some of the Eradicator's memories. And if he trapped Fury in the Phantom Zone, he must not have liked what Fury was doing there."
"What are you saying?" Peter asked.
"I'm saying the Ultimates are dangerous," Clark said. "We know they've kept files on every known superhuman, including you and me. Whatever Fury was looking for in that fortress, Garner didn't want him to have it. I want to go into the Triskelion and get Garner out of there, find out what Fury was doing."
"I don't know if I can help you with this, Clark," Peter said, shaking his head. "Harry's missing, MJ's in the hospital… I've got a lot on my plate right now."
Clark nodded, understanding. "Have you guys found anything on Harry?"
"Nothing useful," Chloe said, discouraged. She scrolled through the wire reports again. "The popular theory now is that Harry orchestrated the whole thing himself, and this Hobgoblin character is working for him."
"And no word on who this guy is?" Clark asked.
"Nothing," Peter said. "But it has to be someone who would have had access to the Goblin formula and his weapons. Harry said they were all destroyed."
"Harry mentioned a secret lab that his father had set up," Clark said.
"Yeah, at OSCORP," Peter recalled. "That's where Harry first transformed."
"Chloe, who purchased OSCORP when Harry sold it?" Clark asked.
A few strokes on the keyboard, and Chloe had the answer. "All of OSCORP's holdings were acquired by Bruce Wayne, president and CEO of Wayne Enterprises in Gotham City," she read from the computer screen.
"I wonder if he could tell us anything," Peter said. "Could be one of his scientists got ahold of the formula and decided to recreate it."
"It's a possible lead," Chloe agreed with a shrug. "It's all we've got at this point."
"So do we go to Gotham?" Peter asked.
"I just thought of something else," Clark said. "If the Ultimates still have a database on every known superhuman, maybe they have something on this Hobgoblin character."
Peter looked back and forth between Clark and the computer screen, unsure of what to do. Chloe looked up at him. They made eye contact for the first time since Clark had entered the newsroom.
"I'll go to Gotham and talk to Wayne," Chloe said decisively. "I still have some connections at the Planet, I can use them to get in to see him. You two go to the Triskelion… and do what you have to do."
Peter folded his arms and looked at Clark. "Okay," he said finally. "So let's say we break into the Triskelion. It's a high security building full of superheroes. We're going to stroll in there, just the two of us?"
Clark shook his head. "No, not just the two of us," he said. "I have a few friends I want to bring along."