Spiderman 3 (23 page)

Uncle Ben was doomed from the start? Nothing I could have done that evening would have had the slightest impact on how things turned out?

At least when he had believed himself directly responsible, he felt—strangely enough—as if he had some control over his life. But now he was learning that he'd never had any control at all.

Uncle Ben never had a chance.

Everything that Peter had done in the past two years to atone for his great sin was simply an endless pursuit in the face of an existence that had suddenly become terribly, even blindingly unfair.

Useless… all of it useless… bad enough I can never bring Uncle Ben back no matter how much I do, but now I could never have saved him in the first place! With great power comes great responsibility? And what if I had no power, huh? That evening, despite all my abilities, I couldn't have done a thing to prevent Ben's being shot and killed. So with no power comes… what? No responsibility ? I should be able to do whatever I want…

And right then, what Peter Parker wanted more than anything was to get his hands around Flint Marko's throat. Flesh and blood, sand, it made no difference. He wanted to find him and kill him with his bare hands, no matter what it took.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Parker," Captain Stacy was saying, removing the photographs. "I know this isn't easy, but please be patient. We're doing our job. We'll catch him."

Peter, seething with barely contained rage, said between clenched teeth, "I don't think you're doing your job. I watched my uncle die, and we went after the wrong man. And now you're saying"—his voice began to rise in pitch and volume—"you had suspicions for two years?
Witnesses
? Why weren't we
told
about that?"

"Settle down, son."

Peter stood, bubbling over with fury. "I've no intention of settling down! This man"—he pointed at the back of the photo—"killed my uncle, and he's still out there!"

He headed for the door, ignoring Aunt May's cry of "Peter!" and Captain Stacy's plea to calm down and take a seat. The only thing he was hearing was the pounding in his head that urged him to get out there, to find Flint Marko, to avenge the death of his uncle.

A vengeance that had waited far too long.

As night fell, a sand cloud drifted through the canyon of skyscrapers and toward a medical research facility on Twenty-seventh and Park Avenue. Sandman had gotten the hang of moving without attracting undue attention, keeping the grains of his body far enough apart that—even if people looked straight at him—they would see no more than a faint discoloration in the air.

He sought and found a ventilation duct on the side of the building and seeped into it. He still had no clear idea of how his mind was truly functioning when he was in this form, other than to think that every single grain of sand contained a part of his consciousness. Once inside, he consolidated his body so that it continued to flow as one steady stream of sand.

He moved quickly through the ventilation shaft and found a place where it opened out into a men's restroom. He ran the grains through the duct, pulled himself together until he looked relatively normal, then stepped outside and glanced around for a directory. Not seeing one anywhere, he asked a passing technician—with as polite and harmless-looking an expression as he could muster—where one might find Dr. Ralph Wallace.

"One flight up, room AF15," the technician said. He started to walk away, then turned around. "But he doesn't like to be disturbed during—"

There was no sign of the man to whom he'd just spoken.

As the technician shrugged it off and decided that maybe he'd been working too hard, Sandman eased his way down the ventilation shaft, went straight up, then over, and continued to make his way around until he finally found room AF15. He moved in through the shaft toward the inside of the room… and the air duct was shut tight. Apparently Dr. Ralph Wallace wasn't big on air-conditioning. Or maybe he was a germophobe, convinced that viruses floating around from another part of the facility might work their way through the air and infect him.

Sandman was momentarily annoyed, then decided it was another of life's little challenges to overcome. Moving in a different direction, he found a small separation in a connection point and eased his sandy body through it. He discovered that he was inside the wall, moving past electrical wiring that naturally had no effect on him. He found an electrical outlet and seeped through it into the room. As he did so, he managed to short out power—the lights flickered out before coming back on courtesy of emergency backup.

Dr. Wallace, meantime, had clearly heard Sandman's passing through the vent system, but had no clue what it was. Perhaps mice or something equally charming? He followed the noise to the end of the wall, then said softly, "Is someone there?"

Sandman collected the grains of his body, reconstituted them, and came into existence behind Wallace. The good doctor didn't hear a thing and, after apparently satisfying himself that it was probably nothing, turned around and emitted a somewhat girlish shriek of surprise. "Who are you?!" he demanded, clutching his lab coat as if he'd just stepped out of the shower. "How did you get in here?"

"It's all right," Sandman said, holding his hands up. "It's me. Flint Marko." He waited for Wallace to react to the name, and the doctor did, looking both surprised and alarmed… but also curious. "I wrote you from prison about my daughter, Penny. She still needs your help."

Wallace looked worried that, if he didn't say the right thing, Marko might destroy him. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and said, "I can't help you. I wrote you back. I tried to explain in the letter… I didn't have the funding to finish the research… the little money you did send barely bought test tubes."

"Well, try this," said Sandman.

He reached down and picked up a bag of money stolen from the armored car. It hadn't been easy getting it in here. Basically, Marko had had to concentrate and absorb the money into his own sandy body, breaking it down molecule by molecule. It was the only way to smuggle it in. The first several bags he'd tried it with, his attempts to reconstitute the cash had resulted in the bills falling apart in his hands. He'd finally managed through practice to make it work. The amount of money lost in the process was incredibly frustrating, but at least he still had an impressive amount.

Wallace stared at the bag for a moment, and Marko saw a thin line of sweat beading his brow. "It won't be enough," Wallace said, which immediately raised Marko's suspicions, since Wallace hadn't even glanced inside. He had no idea how much money was in there. More likely Wallace was terrified at the thought of receiving stolen cash. "It would take teams of researchers, millions of dollars…"

"Then I'll get more! All you need!"

"Even if you could," Wallace insisted, "it's highly unlikely we'd find a cure in the short time your daughter has left."

Wallace's reluctance probably stemmed from aiding a known criminal via "ill-gotten gain." But Sandman didn't give a damn about niceties or moralities—to him, the end justified the means. If the end meant that Penny lived, then any means was fine by him. The problem was bringing Wallace, the foremost expert—indeed, the only expert—on this disease into line with Sandman's way of thinking.

Shouldn't be too hard.

"Shut up!" snarled Marko as he slammed Wallace against a window, shattering it. Wallace almost tumbled to the floor, but Marko grabbed him and yanked him forward. Wind whistled in through the broken glass, blowing papers off the counters. He hauled Wallace up until they were practically nose to nose and said with barely controlled fury, "You're gonna help her, Doc. I'll get you the money if I have to level the entire city to do it. Just fine a cure for my Penny!"

"Yes! Yes, I will!" Wallace cried out. "Don't hurt me!"

"Then don't fail me!"

He shoved Wallace well clear of the window, and the research scientist fell to the floor, utterly petrified.

Well, that had been easy enough. A meeting of minds established in just a few seconds through threat and intimidation.

Satisfied with the way matters stood, Sandman released his mental hold on his body and streamed out the window, running down the side of the building. The dustup with Wallace already behind him, he got busy thinking about his next move, and where he was going to
get
the money he needed.

Wherever it was, he was certain to find it. He was going to save Penny. Find her a cure.

A cure that had waited far too long.

THROUGH A MIRROR DARKLY

Peter Parker looked out at the night sky through the window of his small apartment. The scratchy voice on his police scanner barked out announcements, except Peter had changed the frequency. No longer was he just attending to the major emergency calls—now any summons, no matter how trivial, was coming through. The almost steady stream of chatter was overwhelming, but he didn't want to take a chance that some seemingly insignificant problem—people experiencing a small sandstorm on a Coney Island beach, for instance—could slip past Peter when it might lead him to his prey.

Come on, Marko. Come on. Turn up. Give me something to go on. Make yourself known so I can find you and give you what's coming to you.

"
L20 Parkway, abandoned vehicle
," the scanner announced. "
Elderly man in center of Wabash, sorry, Parkway Avenue
…"

Still nothing. He turned and glared at the scanner, as if mentally commanding it to give him something useful.

There was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" he called, not really interested.

"It's me."

Mary Jane. He heaved a sigh. Only the day before, he would have sprung across the apartment and thrown the door open, overjoyed to see her. Now, somehow, Mary Jane's presence seemed irrelevant. He had matters of far greater concern on his mind. It was as if she belonged to a part of his life that—if he hadn't left it behind—had at least become inconsequential.

Still, he couldn't just leave her standing out in the hallway. He crossed to the door, opened it, and turned back to the police scanner.

"I'm not here about what happened in the restaurant. I'm sorry that happened," she said, her hands fluttering slightly in agitation. Whether she was or not was of no great concern—the restaurant incident was a lifetime ago. "But Aunt May called me, told me about this convict and what he did and Uncle Ben. She's worried about you."

"She worries too much," Peter said curtly.

Mary Jane was about to reply, but the chatter of the scanner cut in. "Could you turn that down?" she asked. He petulantly considered turning it up instead. The anger within him burned like fire, over Uncle Ben's death, over the police department's ineptness. He wanted to take it all out on someone, preferably Flint Marko.

But Marko wasn't here, and Mary Jane was, and there was no reason to misplace his aggression on her just because she was trying to help… even though he didn't need it. So he turned the police scanner down to a low murmur. Enough so that he could still pick out what was being said, but not so much that it drowned out what she was saying to him.