Friday, November 29

Peter jolted awake at noon, gasping. He rolled out of bed and stood in the middle of the room, blinking at the sunlight that poured into the room through his windows. Clock. It's noon. Okay, senses. What woke me up?

"And how the hell did I sleep until noon?" Peter muttered, squinting and completely disoriented.

He checked back along his senses and didn't find anything out of place, just cloudy dreams… with Uncle Ben in them.

Peter stood catching his breath, and he realized that he never thought about Uncle Ben anymore. He felt a moment of shame. "Maybe this is because Beck brought him up," Peter said to himself, leaning against the wall and looking out the window. "Maybe I repressed Uncle Ben's memory so deep…" He stirred, then quickly dressed and left the house.

xXx

Peter smiled fondly down at Aunt May. She was sleeping peacefully, so he let her. He kissed her gently on the forehead, and left the flowers he had brought on the small table by the bed. Then he quietly took his leave.

He was walking away from the hospital when he spotted a pay phone. He fumbled in his pockets; no change left. He did, however, have a five dollar bill. He saw a news vendor and grinned.

"One of the Planetary please, my good man," he said. The vendor handed him a copy of the glossy tabloid. Peter gave him the five and got enough back to make two pay phone calls. He tucked the magazine under his arm and went to the pay phone.

"Damn cell phones," he muttered. "These things are harder to find all the time." He slotted in his cash and called the switchboard at school. "Beck, please," he said. "Quentin Beck."

The call rang through. "Beck here."

"Hey, this is Peter," he said. "You got a minute?"

"I was just headed out to play some racquetball, but sure, I got a minute."

"Hey, do you have a partner?"

"I usually find somebody at the gym," Beck said.

"I'm no slouch at racquetball myself," Peter said. "Want a partner?"

"Sure," Beck said. "That'd be great."

"I have to swing by my house," Peter said, "so I should be there in about half an hour. Just meet you at the gym."

"Sounds good," said Beck.

"Later," Peter said, and he hung up and jogged to beat the bus to its stop.

xXx

Beck dribbled the ball a little, breathing deep, sweat gathered on his face. He glanced over at Peter.

"You are good at this," he said. He tossed the ball up and thwacked it into play. Peter dove for it, with a shout he barely managed to return it. Beck slammed it off the back wall and over Peter's prone form.

"Good show!" Peter said, clambering to his feet. "I think I need a breather."

"Fair enough," Beck said. He tucked the ball in his pocket and leaned back against the wall while Peter squatted, catching his breath.

"Last night," Beck said, examining his racquet's strings for signs of strain, "I dreamed I was the Pharaoh and I was presiding over the knighting of a C.E.O. in Cairo. For the buffet afterwards we had Volkswagens stuffed with cabbage." He shook his head with a faint smile. "I would love to know where that came from."

"I dreamed about my Uncle Ben," Peter said in a subdued voice. He shook his head. "That's really unusual for me."

"Well," Beck said, "frequently, repressed anger or mourning are pushed out of the conscious mind. They're too powerful to overcome that way. They find the front door locked, so they just come in the back door." He mopped his face with his towel. "Ghosts we make for ourselves," he said softly.

"So how do you get rid of them?" Peter asked, looking him in the eye.

"Confront them," Beck said.

"How, if they're subconscious?" Peter asked. "Sock them in my dream?"

"No," Beck said, shaking his head. "Beating them down is how they got in your dream in the first place. I would say hypnosis would give you the best chance of facing them directly."

"Sounds like that's your answer for everything," Peter said wryly.

"Hey," Beck said, spreading his hands, "to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's what I know. So I'm a one trick pony. So sue me." He grinned.

"You know," Peter said, "you're in pretty good shape for an egghead."

"The mind is in the body," Beck said sagely. "For an academic, you stay in pretty good shape."

"Youth is wasted on the young," Peter grinned. "Now if we're through trading chestnuts, maybe you could finish beating me so I can go home?"

xXx

Beck kicked the door open and strode in fuming as the rebound slammed the door behind him. He dropped his gym bag on the open expanse of floor as he headed towards the back. Grummins and Wylde peered at him from the balcony.

"Trouble at work?" Wylde said.

"I've gotten close, and gotten close fast," Beck said as he approached. "But that damned Stark scholarship screwed everything up. We're going to have to take a more concrete approach before he totally loses interest in Quentin Beck, Academic on Sabbatical. It's a good thing he's a hero. It's time to go with plan b," he said, walking over to his workbench and picking up his helmet. For a long moment he looked at his reflection in the glassy fishbowl. Then he looked up at Grummins and Wylde.

"Grummins," he said. "Wait until it gets dark, then go trash my office at the school. Be sure to steal the computer, I'll need it here and undamaged."

"What about me?" Wylde said.

"You're his getaway driver," Beck smiled.

"What about you?" Grummins said.

"I'll be setting the stage for our final run of performances," Beck said, his thoughts far distant as his scheming worked itself out.

xXx

Dusk was settling as Peter unlocked the front door and walked in. The house was still empty. Peter wondered if the Uncle Ben feelings he'd been getting were normally absorbed by Aunt May and found him instead while she was gone. He shivered at the thought. Maybe this would be a good night to go out…

He jogged up the stairs and tossed his gear on the bed. He sat in his desk chair for a moment, thoughtful. Who to call?

"I'm not up for another round of holiday cheer with Doug," he muttered. "Too dangerous to go exercising. I can't deal with Aunt May right now. The Staceys?" He shook his head. "How about no." How about Tandi?

"You and your 'lure her into my webs' business. A grown spider ghost like you. Should be ashamed," Peter said to himself, grinning. "See, you'd just want to try to seduce her. I'd have to explain why I ditched her at the party. So no."

Prude.

Peter chuckled as he kicked off his shoes. "We'll just have to see what's on the Sci Fi Channel," he said.

Just then he felt a tug on his senses. He stopped, suddenly wary. Waited, sifting his senses, for the thing that didn't belong.

Smoke. He smelled smoke. But not smoke from a fire? Peter's forehead creased. "Good thing I'm a science major," he muttered. Then he realized the two fire extinguishers in the house were in the basement and the kitchen.

"So I'm unarmed," he shrugged. He crept to the top of the stairs, completely silent.

A wisp of smoke like incense drifted from the kitchen. Peter dropped over the banister, landing without a sound. He cautiously peered around the corner into the kitchen—

Smoke mist billowed around him suddenly before he could entirely figure out its source. His senses wildly groped at the shifting and insubstantial currents of smoke that tugged and whirled around him, they kicked into overdrive and he gasped and jumped back.

As he did, he tasted the narcotic smoke in his throat and with a desperate panic he realized he was being drugged.

"You will leave Beck alone," intoned a voice from the billowing smoke, "or you will suffer deeply."

The room spun counter to the spinning of the smoke, and Peter felt nausea welling up as his senses explored fully the effects of the narcotics. Then Peter saw a flare of green, suffusing the mist, and a skull floated in the chaos.

He staggered forward and slung a punch at it, but a forearm whipped up and caught the punch. Steel edges bit deeply into Peter's knuckles, and the shrouded form did not move. Booming, hollow laughter echoed around him, and Peter staggered back and collapsed.

The mist slowly cleared over his motionless form.

Peter was alone.