Chapter Eleven: Pop Quiz
Stephen Joule stood with his back against the wall. He had straight blond hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and bony wrists, and was peering at a small screen on what appeared to be a calculator. He could have been mistaken for an accountant, if it weren't for the combat armor.
Joule checked the screen on the tracker one more time, slid it into his pocket, and drew his .357 from its holster. He jerked his head at Hendricks, who smoothly stepped forward in response to the signal, sweeping his gun and eyes across the hall as he moved into position. He nodded in turn and Joule came past him, alert for trouble. The signal indicated that Cheap Shot was near the roof, but Joule and Hendricks were too professional to take unnecessary chances.
Hendricks caught up with Joule at the end of the deserted hall. Through the walls of the WXXP building, they could dimly hear the cheerful ruckus of the popular radio station, with its ringing phones and busy personnel working away the Friday afternoon. In spite of WXXP's heavy security, Cheap Shot had no difficulty breaking into empty offices occupying the unused upper floors and his shadows had followed him past the 'For Lease' signs only moments later.
Wilson Fisk had sent his two top industrial spies to investigate Cheap Shot as soon as he had been identified as Joshua Young. Before the former senator was even released from the hospital, his apartment had been located and bugged, his clothes and shoes tagged with transmitters and microphones.
After the confrontation in Fisk's office, Cheap Shot had shimmered out of sight—that was a neat trick, one that Joule wouldn't mind sharing—but Joule and Hendricks had tracked him electronically to a flea-bag motel. Minutes later, Cheap Shot had sent a virus over the internet to wipe out the hard drive on his home computer. This accomplished nothing. They had copied the computer's entire hard drive while in Young's apartment the day before.
Waiting patiently in their van outside his motel hideout, they had sifted rapidly through the files. In a matter of hours they had deciphered coded information indicating that Cheap Shot had made some interesting additions to WXXP's broadcast antenna. Fisk had been pleased, but had cautioned them not to eliminate their target until they discovered the broadcast code for the Consensus Project. Apparently, Cheap Shot hadn't entered the code in his computer system.
Reaching the stairs, Joule swept the area and then cautiously motioned for his partner to follow. The blond man led the way with Hendricks following heavily, gun gripped in his oversized hand. They advanced slowly to the twelfth floor, where Joule pushed the stair door open and stepped into a carpeted hall. The door screeched loudly and Joule tensed, cursing silently. It was vital not to alarm Cheap Shot—at least, not until he entered the Consensus code into his pirate transmitter.
Hendricks eased the door closed and passed by Joule. They continued their sweep until they were satisfied the area was deserted, then swung their bags from their backs and began plugging in and setting up a variety of electronic equipment in an empty office. Cheap Shot, two stories above them on the roof, would be activating the Consensus Project within seconds. Once Hendricks' specially modified equipment received and copied the code, it could be re-broadcast at Fisk's discretion and Cheap Shot would be expendable. Hendricks was on his knees next to his equipment, huge hands moving with surprising deftness as he made the final adjustments and turned on the digital scanner. There was plenty of light for him to work by coming through the window. Joule kept watch at the door.
"Receiving," Hendricks announced briefly, and Joule turned to see the scanner light up, its computer brain sorting through the radio waves saturating the air, searching for unusual signals originating in the immediate area. Joule shifted his grip on his gun and glanced mechanically into the hall. Although Fisk had warned them that Cheap Shot was a high-risk target—and promised extra pay for the hazard—so far the old man had done nothing impressive except pull his useless vanishing act. Waiting for the code to be broadcast and received, Joule entertained himself with detailed, meticulous plans for the money Fisk would be paying them.
"Possible match," Hendricks said. "Possible—" A high-pitched, deafening shriek interrupted him. The noise reached into Joule's head, building up behind his eyes and pounding in his ears, filling the world.
Joule whirled around. His eyes went wide, comically magnified by his glasses, as he saw Hendricks, blood pouring from his nose, falling to one side. Before his partner finished falling, Joule had opened fire on the receiver. The electronic scream overwhelmed the roar of gunfire, but he saw plastic jump from the speaker as four shots splintered it. He hit the scanner with two shots, sending up sparks and throwing the metal case against the wall. The lethal shriek cut off, finally, and Joule cried out with relief in the welcome silence. Hendricks was curled into a fetal position on the carpet.
Wiping his mouth, Joule walked into the room and slid two fingers against Hendricks' neck. His skin was already clammy and there was no pulse. Joule wiped at his mouth again, only then noticing the blood trickling down his chin. Taking a deep breath, Joule blinked away the red haze over his vision and took stock of his own injuries. He had burst blood vessels in his eyes, his nose was bleeding, and his ears were ringing loudly. His hands were shaking, making it difficult to reload the .357, but he hurried to shove the cartridges in, his eyes roaming the hall.
Pulling the tracker from his pocket, he checked Cheap Shot's position. Unchanged. Had the sonic weapon been automatic, set up to kill anyone who attempted to track or copy the broadcast code? Or was Cheap Shot aware of them, ready to attack again? Joule shook his head hard, trying to clear his mind. The equipment was wrecked, Hendricks was dead, and Fisk could go to hell—Joule was getting out of here. Leaving his partner's body behind with the remains of their operation, Joule ducked down the hall at a run.
He hit the stair door with his shoulder and burst through. Grabbing the banister with one hand, he jumped as far down the first flight of steps as he could, stumbling and falling to his hands and knees as he landed. His gun slid out of his hand. As he lunged flat, reaching for it, Joule felt something warm blow through the hair on top of his head. Turning on his back, he saw a heavy chunk of concrete leap from the wall above him and smash to the floor, its muffled thud sounding odd in his half-deafened ears. It left behind a scorched crater larger than his head, almost a foot deep. He could smell the sharp, acrid odor of ozone and see fading flashes of energy sparking and dying between the walls. Dust danced in the sunlight, outlining a laser beam over the stairs. Crossing that line had set off the explosion, and only Joule's panicked fall had saved his life. For the second time in seconds, Joule had escaped a deadly booby trap.
Joule rolled over, lying on his belly against the rough edges of the stairs, his feet above his head. Just ahead of him was the concrete landing, the stairs continuing down in the opposite direction and below him. Down that second flight there were small round black sensors placed along the base of the wall. Peering through his dust-covered glasses, he saw red indicator lights flashing on. The first set was there on the fourth step down, second set near the door to the eleventh floor. Armed and ready. Well, that answered one question: Cheap Shot knew they were there. He was activating new traps, ready for Joule's next move. Letting his forehead fall, Joule cursed. If Cheap Shot knew he was there, he must know about the surveillance bugs...they'd been played.
Breathing hard, Stephen Joule decided right there and then that he was going to make it out.
Spider-Man released the web line he was holding with his left hand, throwing out his right hand and spinning a new line while his momentum carried him forward. The route to campus was familiar enough that he could move automatically through the cold air, his mind on everything but his web-slinging. There was ice everywhere, since the rain of two days before had frozen in puddles all over the city after the temperature dropped sharply, but even the glitter of sunlight on ice didn't catch his attention for long.
The good news was that Aunt May would be released from the hospital this afternoon, once her doctor looked her over and gave the OK. She was glad to be returning home, cheerfully assuring him on the phone that she would be fine by herself when Peter had offered to move back in for awhile. Peter had accepted that she needed her independence but silently promised to visit her more often. Starting with picking her up this afternoon, as soon as he finished with school.
Without a clue what to do next as far as Wilson Fisk was concerned, Peter had stayed home yesterday—well, except for stopping that bank robbery—to fill out the scholarship application and write his essay after class. Both were now tucked safely in his backpack, ready for delivery.
The essay hadn't been easy. For some reason, Peter found it hard to define his future academic goals. He had re-considered all the daydreams he'd had in high school, tried to put them down in black and white, but as he wrote each sentence his mind insisted on pointing out how much crime-fighting would get in the way of earning his Ph.D., how impossible it would be to research atomic physics and swing around the city in tights at the same time. His life was hard enough to balance now, with his academic ambitions shoved to the back burner.
Balance, Spidey mused, landing briefly on a traffic signal before throwing himself forward again. I need to find a way balance my responsibilities, school, my friends...there's got to be a way to do it. This scholarship might be a good way to start. He swung up on a web-line, high enough to look out over the city, spotting familiar landmarks. There was the Chrysler Building, Wright Tower, the WXXP building—
Dropping suddenly to a convenient rooftop, Spider-Man looked again at the WXXP offices. A squat, flat-topped, ugly building, it was always noticeable from the air because of the massive antenna and assorted satellite dishes stuck apparently at random across its roof. What caught his attention now was the cloud of black smoke curling around the broadcast equipment and floating slowly across the windows of the skyscraper next to it. Uh-oh. The web-slinger hopped a few roofs closer, spotting more smoke funneling out from broken windows along the sides of the building and joining the slowly expanding cloud.
Sliding the straps of his backpack off his shoulders, Spider-Man secured it to the roof and flipped into the air, catching himself with a web and swinging toward the radio station at top speed. The closer he got, the worse it looked. Flames were beginning to flicker along the walls, darting up and fumbling over the bricks then retreating, only to reappear stronger than before. People were screaming and jamming the fire escapes, trying to make it down to the street. Firemen were unrolling hoses, setting ladders against the walls.
Spider-Man swung wide around the building, checking for more damage or gloating super-villains, before kicking his way through a window and landing in a crouch inside an unfurnished office on the top floor. He had a simple plan: check each floor, make sure everyone got out, keep an eye on falling debris.
The simple plan went out the window as his spider-sense flared warningly. He jerked his head around just in time to spot the edge of a gold cape flickering past the doorway. Cheap Shot! Spider-Man leaped forward without stopping to wonder what the assassin was doing here or what he would do if he caught him. Spotting the hooded figure standing below a lighted exit sign at the end of the hall, he called out.
"Trying to break into radio? News flash—when they say the entertainment industry is murder, it's a metaphor."
Cheap Shot's answer was a low, menacing laugh. He had the door behind him open and was stepping through it as Spider-Man jumped, flying across the twenty feet separating them in one smooth motion. At the top of his arc through the air, the vigilante suddenly became aware of the hall around him in microscopic detail: a current of air carrying the scent of burning insulation, the continuous rustle of Cheap Shot's cape, a faint click. His nerves flooded with the urgent need to get out of there, but the narrow hall offered no escape route and he was still mid-air when the explosion rolled down the hallway.
The concussion knocked him backward through the air and his back hit a wall hard enough to snap the spine of any ordinary human. It was enough to knock the wind out of Spider-Man, who dropped to the floor. A second later he got his feet under him and stood carefully, one hand to his chest. The hall was on fire, thick smoke making his lungs burn as he gasped for breath.
"Gah," he panted. Willing himself to ignore the pain, he stumbled back toward the exit. After a few steps he jumped to the ceiling and tried to crawl toward forward, but choked on the smoke streaming upward. Dropping back to the floor, he crawled there, under the worst of the smoke. Reaching the stair door as the pain in his chest began to recede, he pulled it open and rolled through, shutting it behind him.
The stairwell was cooler and the clean air flushed the last of the smoke from his lungs. Standing, he looked down. Nothing below. He hopped over the railing and landed on the steps below. As his spider-sense kicked in again, he bounded back up off the stairs, a split-second too late. Spider-Man screamed hoarsely in shock and pain. The blue field of light shimmering into existence below him had just caught his foot. Every nerve in contact with the light exploded in pain, as if the skin had been flayed away from the bones, as if he had dipped his toes in molten iron.
He hit the wall ten feet above the soft blue glow, and felt the pain go dull and start to fade. Clinging to the wall with his hands and one foot, Spider-Man flexibly brought the other foot up between him and the concrete. Stunned, he stared at the undamaged red stocking—from the pain, he'd expected to see nothing but a bleeding stump. He wiggled his toes experimentally in front of his nose, going cross-eyed as he examined them, then set his foot on the wall and looked back down at the stairwell, now innocently empty of blue light.
"Watch out, shoppers, that's a killer of a special..." He was ashamed to hear a weak quaver in the words.
"Yeah, that's the pits, isn't it?" said a tenor voice below him. Spider-Man craned his head and saw a blond guy wearing blackened body armor sitting on the next landing down, cradling a gun against his chest. Spidey doubted he could fire it; both hands were raw and bleeding.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
"You Spider-Man?"
"Who do I look like?" the wall-crawler snapped, irritated.
"Hell if I know. Lost my glasses. You look like a red blur to me, but since you're on the wall..." The guy sighed and said, "You knocked Cheap Shot around earlier this week, didn't you?"
"Yeah, sort of," Spider-Man answered cautiously.
"Well, you should of hit him harder. Like, hard enough to break his neck," the blond guy spat out viciously. "Fisk had us following him, trying to get the code out of him—"
"What code?"
The guy squinted up at him, a doubtful look crossing his dirty face. "You know, the one he has to broadcast to activate the Project?"
"You mean...the hypnotic devices...they won't work until Cheap Shot broadcasts a code?"
"Right, to keep Fisk from double-crossing him, cutting him out of the deal?" He spoke slowly, obviously thinking Spider-Man wasn't much in the brains department. "So, Cheap Shot set us up. Led us here, thinking he was getting ready to broadcast it, thinking we were going to steal it from him and then waste the guy, you follow?"
"Yeah, go on."
"Only, it was a trap. Whole place is a trap, there's laser trip-wires on every floor, all the stairs, explosives, machine guns, the works. And those damn...whatever-the-hell-they-are...one of them got Hendricks, a scream killed him." He coughed. "Hate the blue ones, they hurt like damn-all, but they won't kill you if you can keep moving. The red ones are worse."
"How many of Fisk's people are here?" Spider-Man shifted around until he was head-down, looking at Fisk's battered employee.
"Hendricks is dead, so it's just me," the blond said.
"What?"
Both men turned to see Cheap Shot standing on the landing below them, a thin gold specter. His damaged vocal chords weren't up to shouting, but he conveyed his outrage in hissed syllables. "Fisk sent two—two—idiots after me? Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am? The fool, the fool. I've wasted my time here, expecting an army, and he thinks a couple of hired Neanderthals can stop me?"
I'm not wasting time with jokes. He is going down. Pushing off from the wall, Spider-Man launched himself instantly between the rails toward Cheap Shot. But even spider reflexes weren't fast enough, not when his opponent only had to move a finger. The villain calmly punched a button on the transmitter in his hand.
Spider-Man's head itched briefly and fiercely from the onslaught of electromagnetic waves just before a wave of nausea hit him in the gut. He clutched his stomach and fought not to vomit, curling into a ball. Losing all sense of direction, he bounced helplessly off the railings as the force of the sickness doubled him up in mid-air. Cheap Shot turned, in a swirl of gold cloak, and slammed away through the door.
Hitting the cement stairs hard, Spider-Man panted as his belly gradually unknotted. OK, so...jokes or no jokes, I'm not getting anywhere fast, here.
Sighing with relief, he straightened slowly and then wrinkled his nose with disgust. Fisk's man, now above him, had obviously experienced the nausea Cheap Shot had used on Spider-Man. He was on his knees, gun on the floor, still retching weakly. Spider-Man grabbed at the railing and swung wearily back up to his level. Pulling him to his feet, he gripped his arm as he swayed in place.
"Look—what's your name?"
"Stephen Joule."
"Listen, Joule, Cheap Shot's gonna go after Fisk—"
"Like I care—"
"A lot of people are getting caught in the crossfire."
Joule shrugged and wiped his mouth with the back of one bloody hand. "I just want out of here."
Giving up on teaching Joule the moral of the story, Spider-Man kicked the door in front of him apart, ignoring his companion's panicked shout of warning. He pulled Joule, struggling and dragging his feet, behind him as he walked into the hallway. OK, we're what—tenth story here? Cheap Shot's somewhere below, making his way out...
Joule was screaming about traps and sensors, but Spider-Man hauled him into a fireman's carry over his protests and took off along the wall. Cheap Shot planned to take on Fisk's goons, not me—if I take the high road, I'll avoid most of it. Any traps I can't avoid...I'm going to have to react fast. Blocking out Joule's moans of fear, he tried to let his thoughts go blank, trusting his spider-sense guide him. Relying deeply on his instincts, his movements became smoother, faster.
Crawling through a broken pane, he shoved the terrified Joule against the bricks of the outside wall and webbed him in place, moaning. Hands free now, he dived off the side of the building, somersaulting to shoot a web back against at the wall. As the line pulled tight, Spider-Man rode the arc and smashed back through a window five stories down. Balancing on the balls of his feet and one hand, he glanced up, then froze. He had come face to face with Cheap Shot.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Spider-Man realized that he had come through a window into what must be a conference room, but unlike the rest of the building he'd seen, this room was occupied. A dozen or so people were huddled by a table covered in half-empty pizza boxes. The hall beyond was alive with flame; the same fire that had trapped the WXXP employees in the room had driven Cheap Shot out of the stairwell. Cheap Shot glanced behind him at the burning passage, the twitch of the gold cape betraying his fear. He reached beneath his cloak.
Spider-Man kicked off the floor and did a handspring off the ceiling, landing next to Cheap Shot and knocking the transmitter from his hand even as he felt the now-familiar itch building in his head. The effects cut off abruptly as the box went flying and shattered against a wall. Cheap Shot stumbled backward, tripping over the edge of his cape, and nearly fell into the wall of flame behind him. Spider-Man clutched a handful of gold cloth and pulled him roughly back into the room.
"Way to go, Hot Shot," he joked smugly. "Oh excuse me, Cheap Shot. Couldn't you afford a fire extinguisher?"
On cue, the sprinkler system kicked in. Spider-Man started and jumped a little, looking up at the sudden spray of water. Desperately taking advantage of the moment, Cheap Shot grabbed an employee standing close to him, a young woman wearing jeans and a white fuzzy sweater. Twisting one of her arms behind her, the villain pulled out an automatic, fast in spite of his bandaged hand, and shoved it to her head. Another employee, a middle-aged man wearing slacks and a soot-smudged WXXP shirt, shouted uselessly, "Let her go!"
Spider-Man backed off a step, taken by surprise, in part because he'd thought the fight was over. They were trapped by the fire in the hallway. The only way out was through the window, by web.
"Easy," Spider-Man kept his voice low and even. "It's no good, Cheap Shot. This place is burning down. I can get everyone out of here, we need to get out of here now. You've got nowhere to go. What do you think you're going to do?" he said, incredulously.
Cheap Shot backed up, holding the girl in front of him like a shield. Unbelievably, he was laughing. "Catch, Spider-Man!" he shouted hoarsely, throwing the girl into the fire. Spider-Man shot a web at her, splattering her back and shoulders with silvery goo and pulling fast. She fell yelling to the conference room floor, clothes burning, and Spider-Man shot another web over her, smothering the flames.
Turning, he saw a bunch of ordinary people, dressed for casual Friday, drenched by the sprinklers, choking on smoke, and staring at him and the girl on the floor. There was no trace of Cheap Shot.