Part 7 - Guardians

Chapter 127 - Initiative

Gwen rolled her shoulder, wincing at the pain. Miles was sitting on his bed, staring at the floor.

"Hey, what happened to Max?" She asked him.

"He left."

"He left? Just like that?"

"It might have been my fault."

"Why?"

"I think I annoyed him."

"How?"

"I kept pressing him about why he didn't help out sooner."

She sat down next to him.

"I think he's in pain."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure, but I can see it in his eyes. I mean, he spent one and a half billion years alone on Mount Everest. I thought I was bad for giving up friends, but that's another level of isolation."

"Who knows what it would do to someone."

"I wonder if he can hear us, if he's watching us right now? If so, I hope you're OK Max."

The light flickered a little.

"Yep, he's watching." She concluded.

"Enough about Max. How's your shoulder?"

"Stiff. Achy. But it'll be fine in a few days."

"Good, cos I think we need to take the initiative here. We have to find out where Haze's headquarters is then destroy it."

"Easier said than done. The world's a big place."

"So, let's narrow it down."

The spiders and Zumerwalt poured over a world map spread on a table.

"We don't even know that Haze is in this dimension." Said Gwen.

"It would be illogical to be in another." Replied Zumerwalt.

"But it would think you'd think that, so it would go somewhere else."

"How much do you know about computers?"

"Next to nothing."

"Precisely. Haze is in this dimension, because it is a computer. Computers use logic. In addition, it would require more technology to send instructions to one dimension, then receive an output in another; an inefficient model."

Miles ignored the conversation. His eyes fell on the North Atlantic and a thought occurred to him.

"Hey, where was that US Navy fleet sunk?"

The professor typed into a computer then stuck a pin through the approximate location on the map.

"It would make sense. In the middle of nowhere, so it's unlikely anyone would come across it."

"Clearly someone did find it, since there's a bunch of Navy ships at the bottom there." Gwen replied.

"It's the best we've got. We need to go out there."

"Finally getting that family cruise." Gwen joked.

Miles shook his head.

"Not my family. Just you and me. Maybe just me if you get too seasick or something."

"I don't get seasick. But I've only been on the ferries in the Hudson so…"

"What will you do if you find it?" Asked Zumerwalt.

"Go for a swim, most likely. Especially if Haze sinks the ship."

"We need to actually find a ship first." Said Gwen.

"Maybe there's a Navy boat somewhere?"

"With world tension so high, it is unlikely a US Navy warship would be allowed in British waters." Said Zumerwalt.

Miles sighed, scratching some of the stubble on his chin.

"What about the British Navy?" Gwen suggested.

"Or you could steal a cruise ship. I doubt it would be much different from a Jeep." The professor joked.

Gwen chuckled, but Miles ignored it. He clicked his fingers.

"The Royal Navy. Do you think they'd be alright with it?"

"I will see what I can arrange." The professor replied.

Gwen and Miles climbed onboard a Royal Navy helicopter outside the bunker a day later. They put on headsets so they could talk to each other, the pilots and couple of Navy officers. The aircraft lifted off, heading west towards the coast.

"It isn't often we take civilians for pleasure cruises." Said one of the officers as they came into view of the sea.

"It's hardly a pleasure cruise. With any luck you'll get to shoot at something." Gwen replied.

The officer chuckled.

"With everything spider people have done for however many New Yorks there are, you may not count as civilians anymore. Keep up the good work."

The helicopter touched down aboard a Royal Navy frigate. A second was parked not far off the stern. As the rotors slowed down, the captain came to greet the spiders.

"Welcome aboard HMS Glasgow. I'll show you the places you'll need to know, then we'll get underway. Follow me."

The tour was short, understandably. The spiders leaned over a railing as the two ships surged through the water, out past the Hebrides and into the Atlantic. Miles shuddered at the thought of how deep the water was. It looked black, and he silently prayed he wouldn't have to swim in it. Gwen put a hand on his shoulder.

"You look pale. Are you going to be sick?"

"No. If I can do crazy stunts in New York I can stomach a bit of water."

"What, nearly four-thousand metres of it?"

"OK, shut up."

"So much for stomaching it."

"Please just be quiet, Gwen."

She frowned, wondering what was up with him.

"What's on your mind?"

"I'm wondering what will happen when all this is over. Everyone alive now seems to be perfectly safe and able to look after themselves, so what use is Spiderman?"

"Maybe if you don't upset him, Max will fix the world up."

"I don't care about what Max might do. I care about what is a solid fact. There's nothing left in my world."

"So I see. Looks like there's nothing left of Miles Morales, either."

He shot her a hurt look.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you've become so caught up trying to be a good spider person that you've forgotten about all your hopes and dreams you had before that. The Miles I knew was a great guy: he was smart, creative, a bit of a show-off and a touch goofy. Did he fall overboard on the way over to Scotland or was he blown up like the rest of New York?"

He stared into her eyes, wondering whether it was a pep talk or a prelude to 'I'm breaking up with you'.

"I think he was blown up. He lost everything." He murmured.

"Everything, huh? So your life is nothing, is it?"

"What's left of it, yeah."

"I guess that means me and your parents are nothing as well. Good to know."

"Gwen, wait!"

She disappeared back to her home dimension, leaving him alone. He ran his hands through his hair and screamed silently. A sigh next to him made him try and sort himself out a little. Turning to see who it was, he saw nobody. He frowned, then felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled round but still nobody.

"Cut it out." He snapped.

"Temper, temper, Dad. You're almost as bad as me. I guess that's where I get it from." Said Max, still completely out of sight.

"This was your doing, wasn't it."

"No, it wasn't. Mum's right: you're slipping."

"She thinks you're slipping as well."

"The difference is I know it and am trying to do something about it. What are you doing? Should I just let Haze slaughter everyone here if your life is so worthless?"

"No."

"Why? If your life is worthless, what makes theirs any better?"

"They have a career."

"So do you."

"Yeah, swinging around in a city that no longer exists. Forget it, Max."

There was a click and Miles suddenly found himself clinging on to the railing in a desperate attempt not to fall into the murky depths. A puff of mist floated on the deck, watching him. After a few seconds, he managed to climb back up.

"If your life was so worthless, you would have let go. Pick yourself up and dust yourself off. Prove to Mum that you can take care of yourself, handle some rough spots, then she might come back."

The mist disappeared. Miles stood up and slapped himself across the face a couple of times.

"Come on, Miles. The world's not ended yet." He muttered to himself.

The captain of HMS Glasgow handed Miles the binoculars.

"There's nothing here. Radar and sonar have nothing as well." The captain reported.

Miles sighed, drumming his fingers on his leg.

"It must have moved." He concluded.

He turned to go inside, but his spidey sense told him to look back. The captain said the same thing a second later. Rising out of the water was an enormous metal hulk. It made the ship look like a mere speck. The metal monster let out a noise somewhere between a horn and an alarm. The captain ran back into the bridge.

"All hands, man your battle stations." He ordered.

Alarms blared aboard the Glasgow and the other ship with it. The captain reached for a radio.

"Unidentified vessel: this is the HMS Glasgow. Identify yourself immediately."

Nothing but static. The captain repeated himself. Miles wracked his brain for ideas. This had to be Haze's headquarters; there was nothing else it could be. Suddenly, he spotted something opening. He peered through the binoculars.

"Oh crap…"

A barrage of rockets raced into the air, arcing down towards the second ship of the pair. At the same time, two white streaks appeared in the water heading directly for the HMS Glasgow. Miles braced himself for death, but it never came. He opened his eyes to find everything had stopped. The ocean waves had gone still, the rockets hovered mid-air, the white streaks stayed where they were. It was as if time had been paused, and he realised it actually he had. He looked down at himself, wondering what had protected him from it. Max appeared beside him.

"Einstein said time was relative. Now you have all the time in the world. What you gonna do with it?"

"What can I do?"

"What would Spiderman do?"

Miles realised what Max was telling him to do. He threw down the binoculars, although they slowed and froze before hitting the deck. He climbed over the railing and leapt, firing a web at one of the rockets and swinging up. He kicked it, pushing the front around to face Haze's dreadnought. He did the same to the others, then took a deep breath and let himself dive into the water beside the white streaks. They turned out to be dark cylinders with propellers at the back: torpedoes. He accidentally looked down to see absolute darkness; his heart skipped a beat. In every direction except for up, it was the same. Still, he had to do this. He swam as hard as he could, slowly forcing each of the torpedoes around to face Haze which he could just make out as a dark shadow in the gloom. It stretched for seemingly miles down. Miles pushed back to the surface and swam back to the Glasgow where he climbed back up to Max. The God grinned.

"What's your bet, Corbo?"

"Ten dollars on the rockets falling short and the torpedoes correcting themselves."

"Always a pessimist, my electronic friend. Let's find out."

Time started to flow again. The rockets arced back down towards Haze. Many of them ran out of fuel and splashed down in the ocean, but a couple struck home and detonated causing minimal damage. The torpedoes, on the other hand, began to turn back towards their target. One glanced off Haze's hull, but that only aided its turn. Time stopped again as they came to bear.

"Oooh, bad luck. And I say you owe me five bucks now, Corbo."

"In that case you owe me five as well. We'll call it even."

Max patted Miles on the shoulder.

"So, what will you do about the torpedoes? You can't redirect them, the ship can't outrun or outmanoeuvre them."

"I'm Spiderman, not Aquaman."

"Been reading DC comics? I should have your head for treason."

"Are you just gonna stand there being a complete jerk when you could snap your fingers and just turn those torpedoes into dolphins or something?"

Max shrugged.

"Of course."

With a click, time resumed and a pair of dolphins leapt up out the water. The two ships turned hard, trying to fire off a few missiles that were promptly shot down before they could reach their target. However, both vessels managed to get clear unscathed.

Crossovers in this Chapter

DC, apparently.