Chapter Six
Professor Thomas Morrow stood behind a podium atop a large platform, directly in the center of the convention hall. He straightened his tie and adjusted his glasses. Clearing his throat as he tapped the microphone in front of him, he waited for a few more people to join the crowd that was gathering before him.
Clark leafed through a program of events that they'd gotten at the door, while Peter and Chloe fumbled with a fold-out map.
"What's going on here?" Mary Jane asked.
"I don't know," Clark said. "I can't make any sense of this thing. You wanna check it out?"
"Sure."
Clark handed the program to Mary Jane as the four joined the crowd gathering around the podium.
Professor Morrow cleared his throat once again. "Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to bear witness to is a true marvel of modern technology!"
Mary Jane flipped the page in the program.
The professor continued. "My name is Doctor Thomas Oscar Morrow, and I am about to show you a vision of the future. For as long as man has walked the earth, he has looked to the sky, and dreamed of being able to soar among the clouds, like a bird, or a plane."
Mary Jane flipped the page again. "I think this is it," she said, turning the program so that the other three could see the page.
There was a drawing of a man, wearing some kind of armor, riding on a glider.
Peter felt the tingle start just below his skull, and race up and down the back of his neck.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today I tell you, that dream is now a reality…"
There was a mechanical whine coming from somewhere overhead. It was getting louder.
The tingling in the back of Peter's head was going out of control now.
"Guys," Peter said, grabbing Mary Jane and Chloe by the arms. "We have to get out of here."
"Pete, what's wrong?" Clark asked.
The whine had grown louder… it was almost deafening now. Circling above their heads was a glider, like the one in the drawing. Standing astride it was a man in full body armor.
The glider was sleeker and more streamlined now that Morrow had redesigned it. Morrow had also painted the armor black, to differentiate it from the all too hauntingly familiar image of the Green Goblin that had terrorized the public so recently. Harry had found some green spray paint in the back of the convention hall storage room. The wild, haphazard sprays of green over black only made the suit look even more menacing.
The helmet that Morrow had designed for the suit resembled an ordinary motorcycle helmet. Of course, Harry had brought the mask that he'd found back at OSCORP… the one his father had worn as the original Green Goblin.
He swooped down and flew in low over the heads of the crowd as they began to shriek and run in terror. The Goblin fired off two missiles from the sides of the glider, which tore into a support column that reached all the way to the ceiling of the convention hall. Rubble began to fall from above their heads as a small fire broke out.
"Wait!" Morrow yelled. "This… it wasn't supposed to be like this! Robert, what have you done?!"
"Guess again, Poindexter," the Goblin laughed as he circled around Morrow on the glider. "You've got the real deal now, baby!"
As the panicked masses began to run from the sight of the Goblin, Peter, Mary Jane, Clark, and Chloe all became separated in the crowd. Peter made a mad dash for the nearest restroom so he could change clothes, all the while wondering how this could be that the Goblin had returned. MJ said Harry had mentioned his father on the phone… could Norman Osborn be back from the dead?
"What's the matter, Dr. Morrow?" The Goblin taunted the professor.
"You… You're dead!" Morrow stammered.
"No… you are," the Goblin said, smiling beneath his hideous mask. He stomped on a pedal on the glider and an orange sphere popped up into his hand. "Glad to see you didn't skimp on the pumpkin bombs when you redesigned the glider, Doc."
The Goblin pressed the pumpkin bomb up against Dr. Morrow's chest, and held it there.
"What are you-?!"
The explosion echoed loudly throughout the convention hall as the doctor was literally blown apart by the force of the blast. The Goblin was sent reeling backwards, thrown free from the glider. He landed hard on the concrete floor, the left arm of his green and black armor ripped clean off, his arm badly burned. He lay there laughing hysterically as people rushed past him towards the exit.
"Chloe!" Clark yelled out, looking frantically for his friends. "Peter? Mary Jane?" Even with his heightened senses, it was nearly impossible to pick them out among the screaming crowd. The fire that the Goblin had started was spreading. He had to do something…
Elsewhere amidst the crowd, Chloe fumbled to get her digital camera out of her purse. Her natural journalistic instincts kicked in long before her concern for her own safety.
The Goblin's glider returned to him, honing in on the armor's location. The Goblin picked himself up and dusted himself off, then leapt back onto his glider.
"Thank you, New York!" he called out. "You've been great!"
The Goblin took off, soaring straight up. He fired off two more missiles from the back of the glider which tore into another support column, directly across from the first one. Then, as he crashed through the skylight and sailed off into the night, he dropped a few more pumpkin bombs down into the convention hall for good measure.
Peter Parker, now in full Spider-Man costume, leapt out of the men's room. He looked up just in time to see the Goblin ascending through the skylight.
The several small fires that had resulted from the pumpkin bombs had escalated into a blazing inferno, and it was spreading rapidly. Fortunately it seemed that most of the crowd had made it to the emergency exits by now, and the building's security team was assisting the stragglers. He could go after the Goblin.
He threw himself onto the nearest wall and started climbing.
No. He heard screaming.
He turned and looked out into the flames. He couldn't see anything through all the smoke… he'd have to climb higher. He continued scaling the wall.
There. Chloe Sullivan was trapped, encircled by the fire, with no way out…
His spider sense had been going off non stop, but now it was raging. The first support column was giving out, and part of the ceiling was caving in.
No time to think, just react. One well-placed webline from his wrist, and Spidey sailed over the fire, flames leaping at him as he crossed the blazing convention center. His arm hit Chloe's midsection as he snagged her from the ground in mid-swing, seconds before a huge mass of concrete and debris decimated the spot where she'd just been standing.
They landed near one of the exits. "Are you all right?" he asked her.
"Oh, my God…" Her hand flew to her mouth. "It's you…"
"Miss, are you all right?" he repeated.
"Yes… yes I'm fine, but, my friends, I think they're still in there…"
"I'll find them, just get out of here!"
Chloe ran for the exit as Spider-Man turned and ran back into the blaze.
He couldn't see two feet in front of him. The smoke was so thick now, it burned his eyes even through his mask. He could feel the heat, his costume sticking to his body as sweat poured from his brow. No one could possibly still be alive inside of this flaming tomb.
He heard more screaming. This scream he knew.
"MARY JANE!" he called, as he ran deeper into the fire, following the sound of the screams as best he could. His spider sense told him where to move to dodge the falling wreckage, but he let most of it hit him anyway. "MARY JANE!" he called her name again. "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
The screaming had stopped. Oh, Lord, the screaming had stopped.
There was a huge pile of rubble in front of him. She couldn't be in there…
Spider-Man coughed and gagged as the smoke filled his lungs. He clawed at the rubble, trying desperately to move it, still calling out MJ's name. It was so hot… If he stayed in there much longer he wasn't going to be able to get out alive.
Something was moving towards him. He could make out a figure, faintly, through the smoke. Beneath his mask, Peter Parker squinted his eyes, and tried to fan the smoke away from his face.
The figure stepped forward, and finally came into full view.
It was Clark Kent. He was covered in soot and ash, but he didn't have a single scratch or burn mark on him.
In his arms, he held an unconscious Mary Jane Watson.
The two men stared at each other in disbelief, the fire and smoke still raging around them.
Spider sense. He looked up. The whole ceiling was coming down now. All of it, at once.
"Get her out of here!" Spidey called out. But Clark was already gone. How in the world…?
He didn't wait around. He was barely able to get outside the building before the entire convention center imploded inward onto itself.
As the smoke continued to rise from the wreckage of the demolished convention center, Spider-Man sat perched in a treetop outside, trying to catch his breath. He thought he was rid of the nightmare that was the Green Goblin… but it seemed that his nightmares were only beginning. He stared out over the destruction that had been laid out before him. No one could have survived inside that inferno, no one except him. And yet, he had clearly seen Clark Kent, untouched by the fire.
He buried his face in his hands, and wondered when exactly it was that reality had stopped making any sense whatsoever.