Chapter Four: Random Acts of Shopping
Deep inside the Pentagon, there is a armored room filled with shelves and shelves of large crates. Each shelf reaches high overhead and extends the length of the room, which can only be entered by personnel that have been checked, re-checked, cleared, authorized, approved, and monitored. Or by the janitorial staff, one of whom was mopping the floor late the night the disintegration bombs were stolen.
New York, and the country at large, still had not heard about the sinister green apparition targeting weapons research, but national military leaders had been briefed on the attacks that had taken place. Top Washington brass had discussed possible international backers for the sabotage, planned strategically for responsive action, communicated with undercover agents in different terrorist cells, and held several very important meetings.
The idea that the perpetrator was a nut job trying to increase the stock value of his company never occurred to anyone.
No one was prepared for him to be sneaky, either. So far, his actions had been straightforward, brutal, and effective. Tonight, he was going for subtle. Wearing the plain green cotton pants and top that were the Pentagon's official sanitation worker uniform, he passed nearly unnoticed along the maze-like passages. He knew his way well, pulling memories of the Osborn idiot's visits to high-security laboratories out of the confused recesses of his mind.
The easy part had been finding a trash-collector with the right pass. It hadn't taken many nights of surveillance to pick out someone the right height and weight, and to learn his schedule. All of the passes were color-coded, making it simple for the guards to know who was supposed to be there and who wasn't, and his trash-collecting ignoramus kept his red pass clipped to his shirt as he left work each night. Wearing a dark wig, cheek pads altering the shape of his face and pancake makeup altering its color, it had taken only a few seconds for the lunatic to kill his chosen victim in the employee parking lot, stuff him in the trunk of his own car, and saunter with his stolen pass through the gates into the Pentagon itself.
It shouldn't have worked, of course. Guards should have been checking every face against the picture on the pass, retinal scanners should have kept imposters out of high-security areas, redundant check points should have been in place. After it was all over, a committee was appointed to investigate how it could have happened. The committee interviewed dozens of people, were very impressed by the way an electronic device had been used to scramble the video feed of each camera for the crucial seconds while the intruder walked past, and sent in long reports that no one read.
What it came down to is that no security system is as good as it was planned to be. Systems depend on the people who run it, people who get tired and bored and careless. Maybe they weren't so confident that the five-sided building would never be under attack, anymore, but internal security was another issue. After all, you'd have to be insane to try breaking into the heart of the nation's war machine. Insanity gave the thief an edge, a serene and irrational confidence that these clowns were no match for his brains. The guards, who would have jumped all over anyone whose behavior was suspicious, saw a man without a trace of nervousness or fear go by and never thought to question him. The madman had trouble not laughing out loud with glee over his own cleverness.
We won't get into how he got past the retinal scans. This is a PG-13 rated story, friends.
Fifteen minutes after he entered the gates, the tall man dressed in green was standing over the body of a janitor with a mop, in a room full of large crates. His eyes lit up, making him look like a deranged kid in a candy store. His knowledgeable eyes slid over markings, finding what he wanted within seconds. Fists stronger than any normal human's broke heavy crates into kindling, and filled his trash bag with tricks. Yes, this was what he needed, to expand his arsenal. A chuckle escaped him, but no one heard.
Long before anyone realized something was wrong, he had finished shopping, and was gone.
I'm so glad to be shopping with my mom. Thank you, Mom, Mary Jane thought, without a trace of sarcasm.
Harry had invited her to go to the World Unity Fair with him, up in the balcony of the Olympian Building with the big-wigs and board members. She had hesitated, thinking it would be more fun to walk around Times Square, part of the hustle and noise, dancing and eating junk food. But Harry had just kept talking.
"The view's fantastic, Mary Jane. It's the best way to see the fair—you'll love the buffet, and there's even some private shows for the visiting dignitaries. It's a blast, it beats being down in the crowd, no question."
"I don't know, Harry, I mean—I don't think I'd fit in, y'know? I haven't got anything really to wear..."
Harry had jumped in immediately. "Wear that black dress, the one you wore to the restaurant the other night! It's perfect, I mean it. Really elegant." Harry smiled, and leaned in to kiss her. "You look elegant. You won't fit in, you'll stand out. Everyone will be wondering how a loser like me could end up with a girl like you." MJ ignored the bitterness in his voice. She was getting so tired of always having to reassure her boyfriend, of trying to argue him out of his insecurities.
"I guess it'll be fun. It'll be different, for sure. I've never partied with the rich and famous, before." Harry smiled at her, so happy over such a little thing that she couldn't help smiling back. "Don't worry. Before long, you'll be the rich and famous." MJ had laughed and squashed the little voice inside that wondered if Harry meant as an actress...or if he thought her only way up was through him.
Just before she left, Harry added, "Oh, and my dad will be there. You'll finally get to meet him." Great.
Now, the weekend before the festival, MJ was staying at her parents, in the old familiar house in Forest Hills, Queens. It was partly to spend time with her mother, who was ecstatic, repeating over and over how nice it was to see her, they never saw her anymore. Mary Jane bit her tongue to keep from replying that if she hadn't had laundry to do they wouldn't be seeing her now.
When her dad got home from work Friday night, MJ felt her stomach tighten and start to churn. She'd forgotten, almost, how bad it was around him. She could see in an instant that he had stopped at the bar on the way home from work, getting a head start on being drunk for the weekend. He grunted at his wife, totally ignored his daughter, grabbed a beer from the fridge and let his heavy body fall to the couch.
Mary Jane followed her mom into the kitchen, both of them acting like her dad hadn't walked into the house like a black cloud. With all the practice I've gotten, I should be the best actress in the world, she thought. Her mom talked brightly about the beauty salon, but that only filled a few moments. Nothing much was new. As Melanie Watson fell silent, dumping the hamburger mix into a pan, Mary Jane hunted around for a topic to fill the void.
"Oh, hey, I'm going to the World Unity Fair with Harry Osborn," she said. "Up in the balcony, and everything." Mary Jane got out the napkins and some of their mismatched utensils.
"MJ, that's wonderful!" her mother enthused. "Did you hear that? MJ's going to be up in the balcony at the Fair," she called to her husband.
"God, you must be easy," her father, the man she was supposed to look up to, said crudely. "Can't image why else a rich kid like that would want your fat white face around." Mary Jane closed her eyes and clenched her fists around the tableware as her mom started screaming at the slob she'd married. She didn't want Mom to defend her, she didn't want to be here, she didn't want any of this. She kept her eyes closed until her dad, still cursing, slammed his way out the door and back to the bar. Dinner was burning on the stove.
MJ finally looked up at her mother, who had turned the burner off and was standing motionless at the kitchen counter. Watching her stand there, shoulders slumped, a new thought came to Mary Jane, one so simple and so horrible that she felt tears start to sting her eyelids. She was out. She had come back tonight, but she had a new life, a new place to live, somewhere to go. Her mother didn't. This was her mom's life, and for the first time Mary Jane stopped resenting her mom for putting up with him—heck, for marrying him in the first place—and saw her mother as someone she loved, who needed her sympathy, not blame. Or maybe along with the blame, or something. Mary Jane walked over to give her mom a hug. Melanie wiped her heavily mascara-ed eyes carefully and smiled, hugging MJ back. They stepped apart, awkwardly.
"So, um, well, what are you going to wear?" she asked, her voice shaky. "You know, to the Fair?" MJ decided to play along and pretend like the whole scene hadn't happed. She had lots of practice with that, too. "I dunno, maybe that black dress, you know, the one I got from Lisa?"
Her mom sniffed, and started scraping the scorched mess out of the pan. "Ah, well, that's nice...but, something like this. It'd be more fun to have something new, right? Something to knock your boyfriend's socks off," she added. Mary Jane snorted. "That'd work, if I had any money," she said. "I don't get paid for another week, and it's already spent, I swear."
"Well, there's...I've got a little extra," her mom said. "I've been saving it, you know, your birthday's coming up, so it's for you anyway...why don't we celebrate early, get you something? We can hit the sales tomorrow."
Mary Jane looked at her mom for a moment, opened her mouth to protest, and then shut it. She gave her mom another hard hug and said cheerfully, "Sounds like a plan."
So here they were, going from store to store. In high school, MJ wouldn't have wanted to be caught dead shopping with her mom, but she was surprised at how much fun they were having. Not to mention that she wouldn't have had the money to go on her own. It was late in the afternoon when they found the Chinese pink silk dress.
"Oh, darling, look at it," Melanie Watson breathed as MJ came out of the dressing room. "It fits like it was made for you, honest."
Mary Jane, turning in front of the mirror, had to agree. The pattern on the silk was lovely, far more elegant than her black dress, and the tailored contours hugged her waist, making her look both slender and curvy in the right places. "It's perfect, too, it'll fit right in with the theme, everyone will be dressing up in ethnic costumes," she bubbled. Checking the tag again, she said, "Clearance sale, you can't beat that, oh Mom, I swear—this is great!" Bouncing over to give her mom a hug, Mary Jane was grinning widely. Nothing like new clothes to boost you up in a nerve-wracking situation. Harry was going to love it.