Like a hummingbird, he thought. It's got to eat all the time to keep going. Its intake of residual and background radiation must be very carefully balanced against its intake of harder, more concentrated sources of radiation. Too much of one or the other might have serious consequences.
He reached one of the tunnels he had passed through before and stopped. Torn-up metal lay around in strips and shreds. He picked up one piece and fingered it thoughtfully. It reminded him of the metal of those canisters which had been stolen from CCRC. He lifted it to his face and sniffed, but caught nothing more than a vague chemical smell.
Something made a scratching sound not too far away. Spider-Man stopped, listening, and softly put the piece of metal down. A rat? he thought. But it was not a rat. It sounded like it might have been underneath. Below me somewhere?
Well, he thought. Let's see. Spend a few minutes here: then if that doesn't work, I'll move a little further on, tryagain. All the same, the thought of having to do this six or eight times frightened him. He had wasted enough precious minutes finding his way back here.
Spider-Man chopped the thought off. Slowly he reached to the canister webbed to his belt. There was no time to rig any protective gear for himself and there was no realistic way to calculate radiation dosage. And there was hardly time to go back to ESU to get a lead apron.
He unscrewed the canister. There inside it lay the little glass capsule, very innocuous-looking. Americium isotope wasn't something you could carry around in lumps; it was enough trouble making it in thousandths of a gram, and half the time you wound up cutting it with talc so you could work with it at all. No matter. No time to worry about it.
Slowly he held up the open canister—and stood there with it open, feeling his skin begin to itch.
Somewhere, below him, came a rustle. Then another.
It can't really make you itch, he reassured himself. Nonetheless, he swore he could feel the stuff burning through his hand. It was ridiculous. His hand was protected by the lead container. Radiation escaping from the end of the canister moved in a straight line. It did not go around corners; otherwise that concrete shield back at ESU would have been useless.
Spider-Man stood there in the darkness, waiting for the creature to hurry up and take the bait. He grew impatient, and muttered, "Oh, come on."
And to his surprise, his spider-sense began to tingle. He turned, looking for the source.
There was a stairway leading downwards, off to oneside of the tunnel. Many tunnels had these. Spider-Man had been ignoring them, by and large, trying to stay on one level and not confuse himself too much. Now he saw something come wavering up that stairway. A snake? As far as he knew, the New York sewers and tunnels were not famous for snakes.
After that first one came wavering up another of the long, sinuous shapes: not a snake at all, but a long black tentacle. The rustling grew louder as more of those dark tentacles came whispering up out of the stairwell to the lower level. And behind them, the larger shape, dark, humanoid, bigger than a human—
For a moment Spider-Man's heart clenched, as he thought he was looking at Venom. No, it's bigger than Venom!
It paused near the top of the stairwell, holding the two sides of the opening with its arms, crouched down, staring at him with those pale patches of eyes. Slowly Spider-Man held up the little canister with the americium inside.
As fast as any number of cobras striking, the creature leaped at him. But Spider-Man was ready for it this time. He leapt faster and away.
On spider-agile feet and single-handedly, he went galloping along the ceiling of the tunnel, retracing his steps, heading for the nearest of his tracers. The creature rushed along after him, bumping, scattering the trash and the rubble, grasping at Spider-Man with its tentacles. Once or twice he felt the wind of one or another of them missing him from behind as it made a hurried grab at him, but fast moves, quick rushes on his part, and the warnings of his spider-sense kept him one jump ahead. Spider-Man began to feel like the snack cart at the college cafeteria, with a whole class of hungry undergrads after him.
He burst into a big chamber, ran right around the walls of it, and was about to turn into the hallway he had marked, when he noticed dark, crouched forms in it, staring at him in astonishment. Oh, no, he thought, people! Behind him he heard, once again, the bizarre soprano screech of the creature as it came up behind. It was not used to its food running away with such energy. It was taking exception.
I can't bring it there, he thought, and instead led it down a secondary tunnel that led to the train tracks. Here, at least, there wouldn't be too much trouble. It was the middle of the night, the trains were few and far between.
Fat chance, he thought with a gasp of a laugh as he dived out the door, over the third rail, and came down on the tracks running. He sprinted down to the platform, ignoring the almost-empty station, and out again. The creature galloped after him at full speed.
They ran on. Another platform came into view down a long straight run of track, and he could see the glaring lights of a train facing him head-on. No matter for the moment. This tunnel intersected with the one he had marked. He could feel the tracer not too far away.
Behind him there was a bump, followed by a splatter of brightness, a fizz of furious sparks, and a shower of light, as the creature touched the third rail. That soprano shriek went up again, angry this time.
Spider-Man glanced back. The creature was barely thirty yards behind him. Didn't even slow it down, he thought in wonder. He kept running. At the end of the tunnel, the glaring lights of the train began to move forward, and he heard the squeak of its wheels as it began to pick up speed.
Where is that opening? he thought. It was down here, before the station—where is the thing? Behind him he could hear gravel crunching as the creature closed in on him. Its scream rang out again, sounding frustrated and annoyed.
I've done a lot of interesting things in my career, thought Spider-Man, but I've never yet played chicken with an A train. Where is that opening? Then he saw it, about fifty yards ahead of him. He sprinted. So did the train. Behind him, the creature was gaining on the straightaway. Not close enough to get him with the tentacles as yet, but they were reaching, and the scream was getting closer. Okay, he thought, just follow me on in here, don't let the nice train hit you, all right?
Spider-Man dived sideways over the third rail, into the opening of the utility tunnel. His spider-sense told him that his tracer was no more than another thirty yards behind him, and the way to it seemed clear. He paused in the doorway, panting for breath, and turned for a moment—and then heard the scream of brakes as if the train's driver, no doubt used to placid after-midnight runs, suddenly noticed something unusual on the tracks and realized it might be better not to hit it.
The brakes' squeal went up together with the creature's screech—louder and louder as the two closed on one another. Spider-Man peered out from the doorway to see that the creature made no move to get out of the train's way. Perhaps it felt it didn't need to—anything that could knock over a Penn Central diesel had little to worry about from an IRT train. The IRT train, though, and the people on it, had plenty to worry about.
Spider-Man leapt out of the alcove with all the strength he could muster and kicked the creature out of the train's direct path. He used his webbing and the momentum of the kick to bring himself up from there to the ceiling in order to keep himself safe.
The train came to a shuddering halt. There was a long pause, but then the crunch of gravel resumed as the creature made itself thinner and oozed out from between the wall and the train. Well, it's still alive, Spider-Man thought. He began to retreat. As the creature pulled itself into the opening of the utility tunnel, neatly missing the third rail this time, Spider-Man turned and ran.
The path was a little more familiar. Spider-Man had the tracer to guide him. Left, then right, right again, left once more—and there was the tracer; he was back on known ground. The creature was right behind him, though. Once or tw
ice he felt the quick swipe of wind on the back of his neck as those tentacles made a grab for him, and a different swipe of cold wind further down as it went for the belt, remembering that the isotopes had been there before. But both times it missed, and both times Spider-Man just raced on, not even pausing to look behind to see if it was catching up. Satchel Paige would be proud of me.
The utility tunnels grew quiet as they ran. As quiet as it ever gets this time of night, Spider-Man thought, with the train traffic at its lowest. The only really noticeable noises were the frustrated screeches of the creature behind. It was a pitiful sound, in its way, and if Spider-Man's breath had not been coming so hard he would have felt actively sorry for it. Not only alone, and the only one of its kind on this planet—if that meant anything to it—but hungry, and afraid it wouldn't get what it needed to survive. Well, after it finds the bomb for me, it can have this, Spider-Man thought.
He grinned under his mask as he ran. The shielding on an atomic bomb generally isn't much, so as not to interfere with its being easily transportable. If my buddy here goes after a little americium like this, it should have no trouble finding Hobby's little Tinkertoy. And once we've found it, it can be disarmed. Even Hobby's scientists won't have bothered working up anything more sophisticated to attach to the stolen trigger device than you'd find in a good James Bond movie. Probably I could defuse it myself. . . though if there's time, I'd sooner call in the folks from the Atomic Energy Commission.
His spider-sense kicked into overdrive, warning of another tentacle swiping at his ankle; he scooted out of its way. His breath was coming harder. Can't slow down now.
He passed another spider-tracer, encouraged. This one he remembered as the third one he had put down. He ran past it, leapt for the ceiling again, kept scurrying on. He threw a quick look over his shoulder, wished he hadn't, turned, and kept on going. Can't run outta speed now. MJ'll be really upset if the city's blown up at five thirty.
He was hyperventilating. It's bigger too, came a thought. And that was true—the creature was bigger than when he had last seen it. Not incredibly so, but enough to notice. The bit of isotope it had gotten when they met first—Just that little dose, Spider-Man thought. A gram or two, no more. It grew from that. What a physiology!
He dropped from the ceiling and scurried along the floor again, past the second tracer, the one he had left on the ceiling. Real close, Spider-Man thought. Real close. Pretty soon now, it should stop homing on me, and home on—
He turned a corner, ran down that last long hall, saw the light of the gratings ahead of him—
—and was knocked flat by the creature, who sprang at him. His spider-sense warned him, but the creature came too fast for him to capitalize on the warning in time. It felt exactly like being run over by a train: legs, arms, tentacles, the creature scrambled at Spider-Man, flung him to the side, and swarmed across him, to his absolute astonishment, completely ignoring both Spider-Man and the canister he carried.
Spider-Man levered himself up on his forearms and stared down the dim-lit tunnel at the creature. It was battering at the wall. It screamed that high unearthly scream one more time, and then arms and tentacles together fastened themselves onto the wall—and the concrete began to crumble. It didn't quite melt, though the stone did run; it didn't quite crumble, though dust sifted down. The whole big patch of concrete simply slumped in and away from the creature. Spider-Man had a sudden and irrational urge to hide his eyes, as if from an atomic blast. But if that thing were throwing hard radiation at the wall, no amount of eye-hiding would help him—he was toast, every cell of his body sleeted through with gamma rays of such intensity that he would simply come apart in a few days like wet tissue paper. But he felt not the slightest tinge of heat, and people getting lethal doses of gamma typically reported the feeling of a flash of heat.
The creature scrabbled at the wall, and the wall continued to give way in front of it. Spider-Man scrambled to his feet. The effect was occurring only where the creature actually touched the wall. Not radiation, he thought, not as such. It's as if it were disorganizing the shells of the atoms of the wall on a local basis. Collapsing them? Possibly. Maybe in an earlier time, this creature's kind had normally eaten this way. Fissiles didn't usually occur in pure form, but as very sparse ore. Maybe this was how they got the good stuff out, and threw away what they didn't need. I guess anyone can get too much bulk in their diet.
There was no way to tell. Bracing itself with some tentacles, the creature pulled away at the wall, and the concrete and the metal slumped and fell away until they were gone. The creature dived through into Hobgoblin's generator room.
Spider-Man went after it, impressed, but all the same careful not to touch the edges of the hole. The creature tore its way toward the middle of the big room, ignoring both the generator and the piled up crates and pallets, which was fortunate, considering that the goons Spider-Man had webbed up earlier were still stuck down there.
The creature screamed, louder than before. Up camethe tentacles again, questing, wreathing around it. "Aha," Spider-Man said softly. "You know it's down here somewhere, don't you?"
The creature began scrabbling at the floor. The floor began to give. Uh-oh, Spider-Man thought, hurriedly shooting a webline at the ceiling, and got himself up off the floor before it did something sudden.
The floor beneath the creature crumbled. It looked like a bowl of damp brown sugar being stirred, everything settling inward and downward. A hole appeared, then a space ten feet or so wide fell away from beneath the creature. It dove through roaring, but this time the roar had an odd note in it, one which Spider-Man hadn't heard before. In a human being, it might have been triumph.
Well, let's not miss the fun, Spider-Man said to himself. He swung down on his webline to drop through that hole after the creature—but at a slight angle, so as not to come down right on top of it; he did not want to distract it at this of all moments.
He only had a second or two to take everything in, but there was quite a bit to take in. There was another chamber down here, about the same size as the one above. There had been a lot of equipment in it, big machines like the generator upstairs, a little mainframe computer, some smaller stand-alone PCs. But the phrase "had been" was germane in this case, because a great deal of the machinery lay in broken, shattered piles around the floor: busted circuit boards, smashed monitors, all kinds of plastic and metallic rubble.
Then Spider-Man saw the cause of the destruction:Venom and Hobgoblin. Off to one side, the symbiote had cornered Hobgoblin, who stood on a battered but still hovering jet-glider, with one hand clenching a pumpkin bomb and the other something that looked like a cellphone but which Spider-Man suspected was the trigger for the bomb.
I've missed all the excitement, he thought ruefully. There's been one heck of a fight here. But even Venom wasn't "willing to take any more chances with blowing up the city. We're right into the Mexican standoff stage now.
But now the equation had another element. The creature took only enough time to hit the ground and recover itself. Then all its tentacles and its head whipped around to face a metal box four feet tall and two feet wide that sat by itself in a corner.
The creature flew at it with another of those cries of both hunger and delight, a sound that Spider-Man thought he had only ever heard before from MJ when you took her into that really good Szechuan restaurant at Second and Sixty-Third. It also occurred to Spider-Man at this point— as the creature flung itself at the container of the bomb and began ripping it to shreds—that there was no way for anyone, least of all Hobgoblin, to stop the Interplanetary Gourmet from having what, under present circumstances, was probably the meal of a lifetime.
Hobgoblin stared at it. Venom stared at it too, but Hobby's look was one of much greater horror. At first, Spider-Man thought the bomb's case might have been booby-trapped, and this was about to be the last second of life for all of them. But then he realized Hobby's horror wasn't at the thought of being blown up, but that his bo
mb was being ignominiously noshed down like a corned beef sandwich at the Stage Deli.
"No!" Hobgoblin shrieked, "no, no, no!" and flew at the creature on his jet-glider, pressing the button on his little box. Spider-Man stared in horror.
The creature, busy with the bomb, threw a great wad of wiring and circuitry at Hobby as he came. There was a small explosion which scattered almond-scented shrapnel all around. Warned by his spider-sense, Spider-Man threw himself to the ground—then slowly stood up again, to the sound of more ripping metal. Off to one side, Hobgoblin and his jet glider were on the ground, twisted metal and twisted man trying to disentangled themselves from each other. Spider-Man recognized the almond smell: semtex, he thought.
Meanwhile, the creature was still tearing at the bomb, and after a moment it came up with the only thing that mattered to it: a shape very like a giant cold capsule made of lead-coated steel, slit all open down one side.
Spider-Man blinked. One of the most annoying things about an A-bomb is the basic design, which even the most ill-educated terrorists and impecunious foreign governments have managed to duplicate. Any mass of plutonium over a certain size will blow up; it can't help it. The only way to delay this process is to divide the critical mass into two parts and only slam them together when you want the explosion to happen. The slamming is done by a shaped charge of high explosive, this being what had gone off—but, thanks to the creature's hurry to get at its meal, the explosion hadn't been properly confined, and had done nothing but blow out one end of the bomb's containment vessel. Out of this, the creature hooked out the hemisphere of plutonium that had been closest to the charge, and started eating—crooning with joy as it stuffed bite after bite of metallic plutonium-uranium alloy into its face.