Chapter Twenty Nine
One Year Later
Felicia Hardy had followed in her father's footsteps from thievery, to jail, and now to the walk out of jail.
Enough was enough after all, she thought as she walked away from the iron clad prison. Despite fond memories of her father she was tired of that life. As far as she was concerned the days of the infamous Cat Burglar and his daughter the Black Cat were over. It was time to start a new life, as far away from the scene of her crimes as possible.
Felicia Hardy was an attractive blonde girl of fifteen dressed in an elegant black dress, which clashed against the harsh prison behind her. Felicia wondered about that dress actually. Strangely enough she should have had a few more years before she was released. She had been tried as an adult for her crimes after all, but some unknown figure had paid her significantly expensive bail and set her free, leaving her this dress for when she got out. Felicia was not one to waste a bit of good luck, but she wasn't about to trust a total stranger either.
She was getting out of New York, now.
Fortunately her father had an account for emergencies that would just do the trick, and she memorized all the necessary information. All she had to do was access a public computer, order plain tickets, and be on her way. The computers at the library would do.
She hailed a taxi and got in.
"New York Public Library please," she said.
"Well hello miss Hardy," said a deep voice with a southern accent. "How are you on this fine day?"
Felicia didn't like the sound of that voice. She knew it too well, and didn't like the idea of being cooped up with this stern looking man as the car started moving.
"Is that you Montana?" she asked suspiciously, but with a soft voice. "When did you get out of jail? "
"Last night," said Montana. "The same way you did I believe."
Drat, thought Felicia, that means this meeting isn't a coincidence.
"Would you please let me out Montana?" she said as sternly as she could. "Right now?"
"Relax sugar," said Montana. "I'm taking to where you wanted. Library right?"
That was true. Felicia did notice that the car had been going in the right direction. So far.
"Fine," said Felicia with. "But if you so much as miss a turn I'm getting off this taxi. And please don't call me sugar. I'm not your sweetie."
"Well you certainly aren't spicy," said Montana. "Seriously. You were always too sweet a girl for our side of the law. Sweet and polite…and you use the word 'please' too much. You really were too good for that worthless father of yours anyway."
"Leave my father out of this," said Felecia angrily. "What do you want anyway?"
"Well," said Montana. "We have need of your particular set of skills. You see the guy my Enforcers are working for has something big planned for a certain someone who has made crime pretty much a fantasy in New York. I believe he's the guy who busted you right?"
"Yeah," said Felicia, dredging up a not so pleasant memory. She was in a museum dressed in platinum blonde wig, a black leotard, and a small black mask. She said, "I was after that diamond in the New York museum, and was about to make my getaway when I got caught in something. It turned out to be webs from that Spiderman guy. Kind of a surreal experience, you know? I was leaping out the window I left open and I was suddenly suspended in mid-air. It took a moment to realize what I was caught in. Now I know how a fly feels when he gets caught in a web."
Felicia didn't mention what Spiderman said to her that day while he was hidden in a corner on the ceiling.
"Gee," Spiderman had said tauntingly. "When a black cat crossed my path, I thought it was me who was supposed to bad luck."
If she never saw that Spiderman again…
"Yeah," said Montana. "He got me and my boys out too. You sure you don't want in on this?"
"What?" she asked, noting that Montana was still driving towards the library. "Take down Spiderman? I don't think so. I've made up my mind. I'm getting out of this life."
"It's a bit late for that," said Montana. "You're already a part of this gig. One of the guys I'm working with made sure of that, and he's been keeping tabs on you. Don't' you remember? Someone had gotten to the diamond before you, after all?"
Felicia didn't like where this was going. Someone had, after all, gotten to the diamond before her. She remembered it clearly. She was standing over the diamond, ready to pick it up, but her hand was stopped by something she didn't see. It felt like glass, but it was invisible, so she had smashed it. The diamond disappeared, replaced by a broken glass dome that flickered white like static on a TV screen. The dome was empty, all except for a calling card that read, "Mysterio." Obviously someone had gotten there before her, and left a holographic dome as a replacement. Who knows how long the diamond had actually been missing. To add insult to injury she had gotten captured that day.
As the car pulled up to the library, Felicia decided to stick with her original plan.
"Well," said Felicia. "Thank you, but like I said. I'm through with this life…and I couldn't' care less about getting back at Spiderman. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be going now."
Felicia opened the door and noticed immediately that something was wrong. The library entrance was in the center of the car window when it was closed, it remained there as the door swung open, and was still there when the door came to a stop. Felicia froze and looked around. The windows of the car still showed the city of New York, but outside the care were the white walls of a warehouse.
She had been tricked.
Looking ahead of her she saw, in the center of the warehouse, three men and some sort of computer console. Montana's partners, Ox and Fancy Dan, stood facing her. Ox was a big, burly guy who looked quite mean. Fancy Dan was a short, slightly darker skinned guy who was just a little twitchy. The third man, however, sat at the computer with his back turned, and she had no clue who he was.
Felicia started to calm down a little once she figured out what was going on. The windows of the car were some sort of holographic screens, projecting a false image. Meanwhile the guy at the computer had been controlling the car remotely, as Felicia deduced by the fact that Montana saw the same thing she did when she was in that car, and the computer screen showed the wall that the car was currently facing. There was only one thing that didn't make sense.
"If the car wasn't going where it seemed to be," she began. "Shouldn't I have felt it turning in directions that I wasn't seeing?"
"Ah!" said the man at the computer screen. "But what is a good illusion if it only affects one of the senses?" The man turned around in a squeaky old computer chair and revealed himself to be a nerdy looking guy in classes with a thick black haircut. "That car has specially designed shock absorbers. They should really be called shock redirectors though, as that is their function. They account for the fact that you detected no discrepancy between what you saw and what you felt. Impressed?"
He smiled like an excited schoolboy and Felicia didn't know what to make of him.
"You could say that," she replied, looking around for an exit. Naturally the doors she saw were bolted shut.
"Now," said the stranger. "Please don't feel frightened. Try to think of this as a mutually beneficial opportunity. You wish to disappear I take it? I'm certain that can be arranged. We just need you to do one last little crime for us. That's all. What do you say?"
Felicia looked over at Ox and Fancy Dan who were watching her like hawks. She turned to Montana, who took a stern expression. She knew their abilities, and figured she had a chance against any one of them. All three of them at once, on the other hand, was a completely different matter. Felicia knew, without a doubt…
She wasn't going to have a say in this matter.
"How can I refuse," she asked, thinking all the time that she really would like a chance to refuse.
"Excellent," said the stranger. "Excellent. Now, I, like everyone here, have a reason to get back at a certain wall crawling menace. As for who I am my colleagues call me Quentin beck, but I go by another name, and I hope in time that the public will take to this name as I defame the name of Spiderman. You, Miss Hardy, should be quite familiar with this other name I have chosen for myself."
Quentin tossed her a sparkly object and she caught it. Upon examining the object, she knew exactly the name he had chosen for himself.
For it was the diamond she had tried to steal not so very long ago.
"Yes," she said, looking at Quentin with his schoolboy grin. "Nice to finally meet you.
"Mysterio."
The Marvelous Spider-Man 2
By
Jason Richard
