“Wow,” Peter said, impressed. “That was really just a guess?”
“Well, we learned about it in physics—”
“Quantum theory,” Peter said, finishing Miles’s thought for him.
“This is amazing!” Miles said. “You can teach me! Just like Peter said he would!”
“Before he died,” Peter added.
“Yeah, exactly!”
“Yeah, all right,” Peter said sarcastically.
“I made a promise to him, man,” Miles said, his voice serious.
“You want to learn to be Spider-Man?”
Miles shook his head. “No, I have to learn to be Spider-Man.”
The two Spider-Men looked at each other.
“So here’s lesson number one, kid: Don’t watch the mouth. Watch the hands.”
Then he showed his hands to Miles. The hands that had just finished untying the binds that confined him to the chair. Miles’s jaw hit the floor as Peter stood up.
The next thing Miles knew, Peter leaped in the air, kicked the chair toward Miles, and knocked him over. Then he spun a web, covering Miles’s mouth so he couldn’t yell. One leap later, Peter was at the open window of Uncle Aaron’s apartment.
“I’ll take it from here, kid. Have a nice life, don’t be a fool, stay in school,” Peter said.
Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go! Miles thought.
Peter paused in the window, turning. “Trust me, kid, this’ll all make you a better Spider-Man.”
Then Peter jumped right from the window.
Barely a second later, Miles heard a scream, and the sound of Peter hitting the fire escape.
“Hey, are you okay?” Miles asked, helping Peter sit up. He had tumbled down several flights of stairs and had come to rest on a fire escape a few floors down.
“No, I’m not. I don’t think my atoms are real jazzed about being in the wrong dimension,” Peter said. He looked at Miles. “I got a lot of stuff I’ve gotta deal with back home. I’m not looking for a side gig as a Spider-Man coach.”
“I read the comics,” Miles said. “‘With great power comes great—”’
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence!” Peter interrupted. “I’m sick of it! Trust me, you do not want to be Spider- Man, kid.”
A weird look suddenly came over Peter’s face, and his whole body twitched, vibrating. It was as if he were out of sync or something.
What was that? Miles wondered.
“I don’t have a choice,” Miles protested. “Fisk has a supercollider. He’s trying to kill me.”
“Wait a second. What did you say?” Peter said, stopping Miles in his tracks.
“Fisk’s trying to kill me!”
“Who cares about that? Where’s the collider?” Peter asked.
Man, this Peter Parker sure isn’t like the other Peter Parker.…
“Brooklyn. Under Fisk Tower.”
“Good-bye!” Peter hollered as he started to run.
CHAPTER 15
“Where are you going?” shouted Miles.
What is happening? he thought. I can’t even.
As soon as Miles had mentioned the supercollider and its maybe-it’s-in-this-general-area location, Peter Parker was off. He just flat left Miles standing on the fire escape outside Uncle Aaron’s apartment.
So Miles did the only thing he could think of.
He followed Peter.
Peter was walking up ahead and didn’t seem to hear Miles. Miles was keeping pace, walking as fast as he could, but he was still new to this.
Not to walking—he knew how to do that.
Walking on walls. That was new.
Miles was about fifteen feet behind Peter as they walked sideways along the wall of a ten-story building. Peter got to the edge, looked around, then started to walk down the wall, toward the street. Miles was right behind him.
“When they run it again,” Peter said, “I’ll jump back in the—”
“You can’t let them run it!” Miles said. “I’m supposed to blow it up so it never runs again, or everyone’s gonna die!”
“‘Or everyone is going to die,’” Peter said, and Miles could have sworn his tone was mocking. “That’s what they always say. But there’s always a little bit of time before everybody dies, and that’s when I do my best work.”
“Aren’t you going to need this?” Miles said as he removed the broken override key from his pocket.
“You have a goober? Give it,” Peter said, reaching out. Miles pulled back.
“Wait, no. Not so fast. He—the other Peter—called it an override key.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “There’s always a bypass key, a virus key, a who-cares key,” he said. “I can never remember, so I always call it a goober. Give it.”
“What does it do?” Miles asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Peter said. “Just give it to me.”
Fool me once, Miles thought. Then he shoved the override key into his mouth.
“No!” he said, mouth full of plastic and metal. “I’ll swallow it—don’t play with me!”
“I’m going to use it to hack the system, I’m going to tell it where to send me, jump into the portal, and I’m on my way home. Got it?”
Then Peter turned around and started to walk again.
“But I need the goober,” Miles said.
What happened next, Miles wasn’t completely sure. Near as he could figure, while he was talking, Peter had spun a web directly at his mouth, snagging the override key and yanking it right from his maw.
“Hey! Wait! Hey!” Miles shouted.
Peter examined the key in his hands. “Did you break this?” he asked.
“No,” Miles lied quickly. “It broke. I don’t remember what happened.”
“This is why I never had kids. This is why I never did that.”
Miles looked at the broken device, then back at Peter. “Can’t we make another one?”
“We can’t do anything,” Peter said, sounding exasperated. “Thanks to you, I have to re-steal what your guy stole from Alchemax and make another one of these.”
“The other Peter,” Miles said. “He said if I don’t destroy the collider, it could rupture the space-time continuum.” He paused. “Sounds like that could mess up your universe, too. Look, if you don’t help me, you won’t have a home to go home to.”
“Well, this sucks,” Peter said moodily. “Come on, kid, we have a very important first stop!”
Miles smiled.
Victory.
Miles couldn’t believe that this was the “very important first stop.” He sat across the table from Peter Parker and watched as he shoved a massive burger dripping with every condiment known to man into his mouth.
“I love this burger,” Peter said, mouth full of food. “So delicious. One of the best burgers I’ve ever had. In my universe, this place closed six years ago. I don’t know why. I really don’t.”
Miles rolled his eyes. The fate of the world was at stake, and here he was, sitting in a diner, watching the Spider-Man from another universe eating a burger.
“Can we focus?” Miles begged.
In response, Peter dumped a load of fries from a greasy bag onto the table. Then he spread them out with his hands and picked up a single, soggy stick of potato.
“Okay,” Peter said, sounding like a teacher. “This fry is your universe. It’s soggy, it’s undercooked, it’s small, it’s weird, it’s gross—it wants to grow up to be a better universe.”
Miles sighed.
Then Peter pointed at another french fry. “And this crispy, delicious, normal fry is my universe.”
“So how’d that bring you here?” Miles asked.
“Quantum entanglement,” Peter answered. “Spider-Man from your universe is another version of me. His quantum signature sucked me here through some portal made by Fisk’s collider.”
Miles scratched his head. “What does Fisk want with a portal to different dimensions?”
Peter shrugged. “I
don’t know. He’s your Fisk, not mine. And I need to use that portal to get me from your french fry to my french fry. I call it Spider-Man: Home-going.”
Pointing at the pile of fries, Miles said, “There’s a version of you in every one of these?”
Peter shrugged again. “I hope not.”
“The other Peter—”
“If you don’t mind, let’s call him Dead Peter, just to avoid the confusion.”
Miles’s eyes went wide. “Uh, no? The other Peter said he was going to be showing me the ropes. You got any Spider-Man tips you can tell me now?”
“Yeah, I got plenty,” Peter said, chewing. “Disinfect the mask. You’re gonna want to use baby powder in the suit, heavy on the joints. You can’t have any chafing, right?”
“Anything else?” Miles asked in disbelief.
“Nope, that was everything.”
“I think you’re gonna be a bad teacher,” Miles said.
“We’ll see. Look up where Alchemax is.”
Whipping out his phone, Miles did a quick search and started reading. “?‘Alchemax is a private technological campus in Hudson Valley, New York.’”
Peter slapped the table, causing the pile of fries to scatter. “Well, there you go. We’re going to Hudson Valley.”
“Good,” Miles said, anxious to start. “You can teach me to swing on the way there.”
Peter laughed.
CHAPTER 16
The bus ride from Manhattan to New York’s Hudson Valley took almost three hours. At first, Miles thought maybe they could web-swing their way to Alchemax, but Peter was a little more practical about their situation.
The bus let them off about a mile away from the Alchemax facility. From there, they walked. They started on the road, but as they got closer, Miles and Peter entered the woods that lined the street. Where they were going, they might just need the element of surprise.
Miles saw the labs from a distance. Star looking buildings dotted the landscape. He saw a bunch of big, brutish guys walking around outside.
“So how do we retrace Peter’s steps?” Miles asked.
“That’s a good question,” Peter said. “What would I do if I were me?”
Huh? Oh, right.
“Okay, got it. Step one: I infiltrate the lab,” Peter started. “Two: find the head scientist’s computer. Step three: I hack the computer—”
“It’s not technically hacking,” Miles corrected. “It’s kinda—”
“Not now, hold on. I just lost my train of thought. Step four: download the important stuff. I’ll know it when I see it. And step five: I grab a bagel from the cafeteria and run.”
Peter finished going through the steps, none of which seemed to include Miles.
“So what am I doing?” Miles asked.
“Step six: You stay here. You’re lookout,” Peter replied. “Very important.”
Frustrated, Miles was near his breaking point. “Look, man, you have to teach me to do Spider-Man stuff or I’m not going to be able to help—”
“All right!” Peter said. “Watch and learn, kid. I’ll quiz you later. You are doing great, Miles.” He spun a web that hit the building, and swung away. Miles saw him reach the facility, then pry open a grate on the ground and jump inside.
Ugh. I got the worst Spider-Man.
Miles sat on the rock in the woods, alone, wondering why he had even bothered coming out here in the first place. It wasn’t like he was helping. And he wasn’t learning how to use his new powers.
Oh, and he was missing school, too. Which meant there would be a phone call home to his parents to find out where Miles was.
Which means I am capital-D dead.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he saw the limousine pull up to the front gate. Something about the car caught his attention. Then he realized what it was—the buzzing at the base of his skull was back.
The limousine drove past the gate and up to the front entrance of the Alchemax facility. Miles gasped as he saw Wilson Fisk exit. He was flanked by a big bruiser type. The bruiser had bone-white skin, and Miles recognized him from the news as a guy called Tombstone.
No! No, no, no, no, no! Miles thought. I should warn Peter. No, he didn’t want my help. But Fisk did kill the other Spider-Man… and I just watched. What do I do? What do I do?
Before he knew it, Miles had darted from the woods and into the clearing that lay between him and Alchemax. He kept low to the ground, doing his best to avoid detection.
What am I doing?
He reached the building, jumped, and disappeared down the same grate that Peter had used to enter the facility.
Miles moved along the inside of the air vent, crawling as if it was second nature to him. Every few feet or so, he’d pass over a grate and could see what was happening in the hallway down below. He could see Fisk, and Tombstone was by his side. There were people wearing lab coats just ahead of them. Alchemax employees, Miles assumed.
I wonder what they’re d—
Before he could finish his thought, Miles collided with something big.
“What are you doing here?”
Oh man, it’s Peter!
“Fisk is here!” Miles whispered. “Just move over!”
“C’mon, you’re stepping on my foot!” Peter complained. “Go back outside!”
“Move a little to your right…” Miles insisted. “I can’t just sit here and let Spider-Man die without doing anything about it,” he said, his voice stubborn and strong. “I’m not doing that again.”
Peter looked at Miles, and his expression softened. “Most people I meet in the workplace try to kill me, so you’re a nice change of pace,” he said.
Down below, they watched as a woman wearing a lab coat walked over to Fisk. Miles listened, trying to take in their conversation.
“Look at this data,” the woman said. “I know you can’t really understand this, but these are really good numbers.…”
Both Miles and Peter watched as the two continued to speak. The woman sat down at a computer and started to type, and Miles realized that Fisk and the woman weren’t in a hallway anymore but a room of some kind.
Miles noticed Peter break out in a smile. “And… I got the password!” Peter said. “You see how cool that was?”
He watched her enter the password! How come I didn’t notice that?
Miles strained to look at the scientist below. “You see this?” the woman said. She was showing something to Fisk, but Miles couldn’t see what it was. “And this? This is multiple dimensions beginning to crash into each other. If we fire again this week, there could be a black hole under New York. A rupture in the space-time continuum. And that’s just impractical.”
Miles listened, horrified. Peter must have noticed the expression on his face, because his next words were “These are pretty standard Spider-Man stakes. You get used to it. Watch this, he’s going to say, You’ve got twenty-four hours!”
Sure enough, Fisk gave a little shrug and said, “You’ve got twenty-four hours. No excuses!”
Maybe Peter does know what he’s talking about.…
“Hold on, hold on,” the scientist said, “Let’s talk more about this—let me show you some more data.…”
With that, the group left the room. Peter turned to Miles. “Boom! It’s go time.”
“Go time?” Miles echoed. “Man, that’s corny.”
“Yeah, but I’ve always wanted to say go time, and I’ve never had anyone to say it to, so boom! It’s go time!”
Miles wasn’t reassured.
A few seconds later, Peter had clambered out of the vent and into the room below. He went right to the computer and entered the scientist’s password.
“Miles,” he whispered as he typed, “watch the door for—”
When Peter didn’t see Miles by the door or anywhere else in the room, he looked back up at the vent. There was Miles, still trying to get out, his hands stuck.
“What are you doing?” Peter asked.
“I can’t move,” Miles said.
“Okay, relax your fingers,” Peter advised. “Just let go, be in the moment!”
“I am in the moment!” Miles snapped. “It’s a terrible moment!”
“Slow down your breathing, okay?”
Miles felt like he was going to hyperventilate. “This isn’t your yoga class, man!”
“What do you do to relax?”
“Not this!” Miles barked.
“Hey! Calm down,” Peter said, striking a soothing tone. “Relax, relax, calm down, calm down.…”
Miles took a deep breath and thought for a second. And then he started to hum to himself, quietly. He was surprised to find that he could lift one finger from the vent. Then another. In no time, he had pulled his hands free.
That was the good part of Peter’s advice.
The bad part? Miles came unstuck quickly, and he fell to the ground, metal grate and all, with a resounding clang.
“Teenagers are the worst,” Peter said. Suddenly, Peter leaped up from his seat as if his Spider sense had started to buzz, and went to the door. He looked through the small window.
Peter turned and glanced around for Miles. “Miles! Where’d you go? The scientist is heading back. We’re making too much noise.”
“I’m right here!” Miles said.
Peter had obviously heard Miles speak, but he kept looking around as if Miles weren’t in the room. “Where? I can’t see you!”
“I’m right in front of you,” Miles said, as if he were talking to a five-year-old. “Can Spider-Man turn invisible?”
“Not in my universe,” Peter said, gaping. He extended a finger outward to see if it was true.
“Ow! You just poked me in the eye!” Miles moaned.
“This is incredible!” Peter said. “Some kind of fight-or-flight thing.”
But they didn’t have time to ponder this amazing discovery. The sound of footsteps grew closer. Peter turned to the invisible Miles and said, “Stay invisible and download the schematics!” Then he gave Miles the password to the computer.
How do I do this? I don’t know how to… What is Peter thinking?!
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse--The Junior Novel Page 5