by David Liss
She said nothing.
“You must have seen a fake,” he said. “I have a copy of the real police file, right here.” He pointed at the file on the ground. “Look at it. I read it, and do you know what it looks like? Whoever gave you that spear is the person who murdered your father.”
She took a step back. “You’re trying to throw me off my game.” He took a step forward, his hands up, as if he was surrendering. She turned the spear toward him.
“I want you to hear the truth,” he said. “I am making myself vulnerable because I want you to see how serious I am. Just look at the file.”
“Whoever surrenders his power is a fool,” she told him.
“Maybe so,” he responded, “but I would rather be a weak fool than an evil crime lord. A really fat evil crime lord. With giant fists. They’re like—” he lowered his hands and held them in front of him, making a shape like a ball “—they’re like crazy big. How does he, I don’t know, unwrap a piece of gum with those things? They’re like bowling balls made out of ham.”
Something strange happened. Something Maya hadn’t expected.
She laughed.
Spider-Man had made her laugh, and she didn’t know what to do with that fact—because she could see he wasn’t a monster.
Just because a person is charming doesn’t mean they can’t be evil, she told herself, but even as she thought it she knew it was wrong. It wasn’t that Spider-Man was charming. He was sincere. Yet, if what he had to say was true, then it meant—
She couldn’t even think to herself what it meant.
The spear dropped from her hand. The words didn’t feel as though they came from her own mouth, but she knew they were hers.
“Let me see the file.”
* * *
“HOW do I know it’s real?” She closed the file.
“You’re the victim’s daughter,” Spider-Man told her. “You can go to the police and request a copy for yourself. You’ll find what’s in here, not what Fisk has shown you.”
She blinked several times rapidly. “I’ve been living with the man who killed my father. He lied to me about everything.”
“Yes.”
“The other things they say about him,” Maya said. “The Kingpin of Crime. Is that true?”
She really didn’t know. He thought it was amazing that she could work with him, live with him, and have no clue. Maybe she’d needed to hide it all from herself.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve seen it. I can get you police files on that too, if you need to be convinced. But he’s a bad guy, Maya. He fooled a lot of people. I guess he fooled you.”
He thought she was going to cry. Her face seemed to soften, but then, at once, it was all hard lines.
“We have to stop him,” she said. “He has to pay for what he’s done.”
Peter had to work not to smile. “I was hoping you would say that.”
“HIS tool is extortion,” she said. “He has something on anyone who can help or hurt him. He has something on Mayor Osborn, though I don’t know what. He keeps those files on thumb drives, one in each of his safes.”
They had moved to her private apartment in the Fisk Tower suites. Maya had gone down to her office, opened the window, and waited for Spider-Man to crawl in. He had seen her watching him, as if eight years of hatred were at war with a new understanding of how the universe worked. She wanted to welcome him, but she also kind of wanted to bash him over the head with the first heavy object she could grab.
He’d have to keep an eye on her, too.
They sat at her dining room table. She was still wearing her Echo clothing, and he had again rolled up the bottom of his mask. This was among the strangest meetings he’d ever had, though probably not the strangest. His mind wandered back to his chat with Scorpion and Herman Schultz in the Bar with No Name.
Yeah, definitely not the strangest. Still, a couple of people in costumes just hanging out and chatting.
“How many copies does he have of his blackmail file?”
“At least half a dozen.” She raised a hand to her face as if to rub it, but then stopped when she remembered her stage makeup. She looked tired. Exhausted and lost and scared. Her whole world had been turned upside down, and yet she was trying to forge ahead.
“Maybe you need a little time to sort through all this,” he suggested. “We can meet up again—”
“No,” she snapped. “What am I going to do until then? Keep pretending? Forget it. You showed me the lie, and now you have to deal with it—with me, right now, because I can’t go back.”
Spider-Man nodded. “I just wanted to make sure you don’t need some space.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I don’t need space or distance or time or anything else to distract me from what needs doing. A problem exists, so it must be confronted. Now and without hesitation or regret.”
That was impressive. He couldn’t choose a brand of breakfast cereal without hesitation or regret. He admired Echo’s confidence. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure this situation was as straightforward as she wanted it to be, but he understood about the need to do something, to solve a problem rather than let it sit.
“Then let’s figure things out.”
“Good,” she said. “Now, there may be more copies of the file that I don’t know about. We have the best network security you can imagine, but he’s of an older generation that doesn’t trust the cloud, so he’s gone for redundancy.”
“So, physically destroying all the data probably isn’t an option,” Spider-Man said, “but could we get our hands on one of those drives? If we knew what we were dealing with, we might figure out our next steps.”
“I have access to some of the safes. I’ve been within inches of those drives more times than I can count, and it’s never even occurred to me to take a peek.” She smirked. “Okay, it’s occurred to me. I’d even have done it, if I thought I could get away with it.”
“And now?” Peter prodded.
“I can do it, but it’s an endgame. He’ll know it’s gone immediately. That means there will be no turning back for me, no pretending to still be loyal. I’ll be cut off.”
“You’ve made it pretty clear that pretending isn’t an option.”
“I know,” she said, closing her eyes while she considered something. “Still, it would be an advantage, and I hate to surrender an advantage—any advantage—but I won’t go back. So, yes, I can get one, but he’ll have the rest, and he’ll know he’s been compromised.”
She couldn’t even bring herself to say Fisk’s name, Spider-Man noticed.
“It’s easy to believe that Osborn would have secrets,” he said. “No one, no matter how squeaky clean, could run a company like Oscorp and be mayor of a major city without racking up some things he’d rather keep hidden—and Osborn is a take-no-prisoners kind of leader. He’ll have skeletons in his closet for sure. But that means he would never just roll over. He must have something planned.”
“I had the same thought,” she said. “He seemed too cooperative, but I assumed that meant the blackmail material was so damning that it cut the legs out from under him. It doesn’t matter, though. If we don’t have sole control of the information, then knowing about it doesn’t do us any good.”
“I’m not so sure,” Spider-Man replied. “I mean, if what Osborn is hiding is that bad, then maybe the public should know. And if the public knows, then Fisk can’t use it to get what he wants.”
“You’re talking about exposing Osborn.”
Spider-Man nodded. “Fisk can’t manipulate the mayor if everyone already knows the secret.”
“But what if the mayor is hiding something that’s not the public’s business?” Maya asked. “An embarrassing relationship, or a health problem, or something like that? Do we expose a secret if it’s not illegal or corrupt?”
He shrugged. “I wish I’d taken that Ethics of Blackmail elective back in college. I don’t think we can say what the right thing is until we know what Fisk has, so I
guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. Besides, we might not have to go public with what we find. It may be enough to let the mayor know someone besides Fisk—someone working against Fisk—also has control of the file. What’s the point of caving if someone else could expose you? Fisk loses his grip as soon as Osborn knows we have the data.”
“All of this is theoretical,” she said. “For it to be anything more, we have to get hold of one of those thumb drives. There are two days before the event, so what is your plan?”
“You’re the trusted employee,” he said. “I was kind of hoping you’d have one.”
Maya went silent and scrunched up her face. It looked as if she was thinking hard. She also looked totally miserable.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” Spider-Man said. “You were living a lie, but it was one you believed in. I pulled the rug out from under everything you thought was true.”
She studied him, as if he was a strange specimen under glass. “Do you always apologize for doing what you have to do?”
“Not always. Let’s say about half the time.” Then he leaned forward and grew deadly serious. “New subject: You need to tell me everything you know about the Spider-Man impersonator.”
* * *
AFTER all these weeks of sitting on his hands, he was finally taking action—and that action involved breaking into one of Fisk’s buildings. Then into one of his safes.
The only one for which Maya knew the combination was in the Upper East Side offices. She wanted to do it herself, but Spider-Man insisted on going with her. He wanted to be on hand in case she ran into any trouble, and he wanted to keep an eye on her. The decision to turn on Fisk appeared real enough, but he had to be certain.
Unfortunately, they had to wait until the night before the event. Fisk would be in that very building, hosting a real estate conference, and security would be especially tight. It was safer to wait until he returned to Fisk Tower.
It was late when the opportunity presented itself. Maya could dress in a skirt suit and walk through the front door. Spider-Man found a way in through the roof, and made his way to the office through a combination of climbing, crawling, and dodging the security cameras. By the time he slipped inside, Maya was already there.
She had her laptop set up and a cable was run between it and a port on the safe. The sun had gone down, and the building was quiet. They used only dim lighting, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.
“The safe has an internal sensor log,” she explained as she worked the laptop’s keyboard. “All activity is recorded, and anything suspicious is flagged. That includes any time the safe is opened, especially when Fisk isn’t in the building. I’m uploading a program that should mask the activity.”
“Why bother?” Spider-Man asked. “He’s going to know it’s been stolen soon enough.”
“It should still be after we’re out of the building,” she said. “It’s preferable to make your exit without security guards shooting at you.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he said. “Hopefully, we can stay a step or two ahead of him.”
“People say that,” Maya grunted as her fingers danced over the keyboard, “but few actually do it. He sees the world as a chess match, and he always likes to say that there’s no countermove to checkmate. Now stop talking to me. I can’t read your lips and run this program at the same time.”
He held up his hand in apology and let her do her thing, remaining alert for any sign that they’d been detected. All seemed quiet in the building. His Spider-Sense didn’t even twinge. After a few moments Maya’s laptop emitted a little chime, and she looked up, smiling.
“That should do it. We can open the safe now, and he won’t know until the next time he looks in and notices the missing drive.” She stared at him. “You’ve got the combination, right?”
“Are you kidding me?”
She grinned. “Yes, I am kidding you. I’m used to dealing with Fisk and his associates all day. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had the opportunity to make a joke? You seem like you might have a sense of humor.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he growled, “but sometimes humor is not appropriate.”
Maya shined her flashlight on the complicated series of dials. Opening the safe required a lot more effort than Peter’s old school locker, but Maya moved through the series of turns and reversals as if it was second nature.
There was a click and what sounded like a magnetic release. The safe door swung gently outward. Maya pulled on it and opened it all the way. She pointed her flashlight inside to reveal emptiness.
She ran her hand through the safe, as though she didn’t believe her eyes, as though the thumb drive might have become invisible.
“It was in here,” she said breathlessly. “The thumb drive, files, contracts, even jewelry and artwork. It’s all gone.”
“Could he have moved the contents somewhere else?” Spider-Man suggested. “Maybe for the duration of the conference?”
“You don’t move things out of a safe to keep them safe,” Maya shot back. “That’s why they call it a safe.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Spider-Man raised his hands in surrender. “What does this mean, then?” And that’s when his Spider-Sense lit up. Without pausing to think about it, he pulled his mask all the way down while he leapt into the air, spun, and gripped the ceiling.
Fisk stood at the entrance to the office.
HIS face was hacked into lines and angles of rage. He was on to them, which meant they wouldn’t get another chance to steal the files. They had blown the one opportunity they’d had to stop Osborn from making him untouchable.
If he tried to stop them from leaving—and that seemed a certainty—Spider-Man could beat him…he hoped. He and the Kingpin had squared off before, and it was a mistake to underestimate the big man. He was large, yes, but shockingly fast and devastatingly strong. There were few opponents in the world, even people with enhanced abilities, who could stay upright after one of his best punches.
Even so, Spider-Man’s smaller size and greater speed gave him advantages. If evasion was the goal, then the Web-Slinger had the advantage. Still, just one mistake would exact a heavy price.
Maya was also fast, Spider-Man thought, and elusive. She could get away, but he worried she wouldn’t try. She was smart as hell, no doubt about that, but she was also driven by rage—the newfound knowledge that the man who had pretended to care for her had killed her father. He hoped the strategic side of her would be in full command here. If so, there was no reason the two of them couldn’t get out, regroup, and live to fight another day.
No reason except for the imposter.
The doppelgänger came in from the hall, blazingly fast, and leapt up to the ceiling. While it was impossible to read his expression under the mask, Spider-Man felt certain he was smirking at them. Once again, the fire began to burn in his core.
Time slowed down. Spider-Man’s emotions went still. This man—Bingham—had dressed like him and killed innocent people. He’d killed Anika, and Remzi. And there, next to him, as though holding his leash, stood Fisk. These people were pure evil, and he was going to stop them.
He was going to make them pay. In his mind, he could feel what it would be like to hit that madman, to bring him down, to make him suffer the way he’d made others suffer. He wasn’t going to just web him up and let the police come, only to release him. He was going to—
He didn’t know what he was going to do.
But it would hurt. That much he knew.
“It’s true,” Fisk said to Maya, his voice resonant with sadness. “When they told me you’d betrayed me to this… this nuisance, I didn’t believe it. Yet here we are.”
“Is it any less than you deserve?” Maya spat. “You killed my father. You raised me to believe a lie.” She dropped into a defensive stance.
“After all I’ve done for you,” Fisk said, “you believe his deceptions. Think, Maya
. Think of what your life would have been without me. Think before you decide whom to trust.”
“Without you, my father would still be alive.”
“Without me,” he countered, “he’d have been killed long before he left Montana. Has that never occurred to you? Once I saved his life, it belonged to me, and it was mine to do with as I pleased.”
He was vaguely aware of this conversation, as if it was happening at the distant end of a winding tunnel, but then he snapped back into the moment. He would have justice. He would, but he had to be smart. He had to keep his head in the game. They weren’t going to win anything in the next few minutes. No amount of punching or webbing was going to put this matter to rest, because whatever happened, Fisk would still have his leverage over Osborn.
I worried about Maya being emotional, he told himself. I need to worry about myself, too. I need to play this smart.
“So, that sounds like a confession,” Spider-Man said, though it occurred to him that Maya wouldn’t hear anything he said.
“You know what?” the doppelgänger said. “I’m bored. Let’s get to the part where we kill them.” Suddenly he put his hands to his cheeks. “Oh, no! The deaf girl doesn’t know what I’m talking about.” He began to wave his hands around in a mockery of sign language. “We-are-going-to-kill-you,” he said in a sing-song voice. “You-and-the-fake-Spider-Man.”
“Wait. I’m the fake?” the Web-Slinger said. “That’s actually your position? Are you also Alexander the Great?”
“You are the fake!” the imposter snapped. “I’m the original. They made me. I’m not a false Spider-Man, afraid to act, afraid to do what’s necessary. My hands are covered in blood, and I’m the Blood Spider. Yes, that is my true name! Blood Spider!”
“And it’s super cool,” Spider-Man responded. “You’re an amazing big boy for sure.” He paused. “So where’s the thumb drive again?”
“Safe,” the imposter said. “It’s safe, but it’s not in the safe. It’s safe.”
“Enough,” Fisk shouted. “Kill him!” He gestured toward Spider-Man. “But be warned, I want Maya unharmed.”