Act 3, Scene 2
A police helicopter amongst the high-rise of Manhattan, hot on the tail of Spiderman. It's the same helicopter and the same crew he had a confrontation with in Act 1, Scene 5.
PILOT: Ready for some payback?
SNIPER: Oh hell yeah. Let's get the formalities done with.
We cut to Spiderman. He webs the side of a building with his other hand and detaches his main webline, causing the second web to yank him backward like a bungee cord and allowing him to execute a staggeringly tight turn. The helicopter struggles to keep up.
LOUDSPEAKER: THIS IS THE NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT. LAND ON THE NEAREST ROOF AND PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE.
We cut back to the helicopter.
PILOT: I don't think he's gonna listen.
SNIPER: Aw, damn.
He begins shooting. He's good, but he's no match for a spider-sense; the bullets go extremely close but Spiderman always seems to be able to twist his body in the right way to avoid the bullets. The chase continues as he shoots. Spiderman swings over the Chrysler Building and plummets into the avenue beyond…just as another police helicopter joins the pursuit. Another sniper begins firing. Bullets slice through the air, peppering Spiderman's trajectory a split-second behind him.
Now facing two high-powered rifles, Spiderman must up his game. He takes a ninety-degree turn around a twenty-storey building. The helicopters turn to follow him…and find he's nowhere to be seen.
PILOT: You got him?
SNIPER: I don't got him.
PILOT: Great…(flicks switch) base, we lost target.
We haven't lost him, however. He's flattened himself to the underside of an overhang on one of the buildings he swung past. The helicopters stay hovering for a moment and then split up and fly off, resuming the search.
Spiderman is breathing somewhat heavily, but we sense it may not be due to exertion. Although we can't see his face, the black suit has stretched tighter than usual, so we can see at least a hint of the stress concealed beneath. As we watch he paws at the mask and it vanishes on cue. Peter looks terrible. He holds a hand to his temple, as if fighting off a migraine.
The world flashes into a black void, then flashes back to the New York morning. Peter groans in pain. We see the surface of his suit ripple.
The world flashes again into the void, which stays for longer this time. Long enough for Peter to see another glimpse of that shadowed silhouette lurking. This time it's closer to us and we can see a little more of it – it's human-shaped, but the face…the face is wrong somehow, and those teeth…
THING: Join…me.
Something moves within that unnaturally large mouth, behind those needle-pointed teeth.
THING: Join…with…me.
Peter's back to reality again, back hanging from a New York building. From within the building he's attached to he sees movement. A woman is inside, on the phone. She's looking directly at him. His newly-augmented hearing picks up what she's saying.
WOMAN: …he's hanging off my building! Yeah! Hey, is there some sorta reward for this?
Spiderman simply lets go, vanishing from sight. We cut to him some time later dropping into a deserted alley. Police sirens blare in the distance. He melts into the shadows between two dumpsters, slumping to the ground, perhaps now genuinely coming close to exhaustion.
We see a flash-memory of him punching the guy across the street into the clothes shop window. Reality returns and he clutches at his temple, obviously agonised at the recollection.
An old tramp pushing a cart enters the alleyway, collecting cans. He has a radio taped to his cart.
RADIO: …escaped again. Meanwhile crime in New York has seen a massive spike in the wake of the frenzy. With the police and Spiderman too busy with each other, it seems the real winners today are the criminals.
TRAMP: (muttering)Lousy cops…
He fiddles with the tuning dial until another station comes through.
RADIO: …seems as though the police simply won't have the manpower to deal with the crowd converging on the Parker household...
In the shadows, Spiderman's head lifts.
