Half an hour had passed since the press conference ended; it was now eleven-thirty in the morning. On the private rooftop restaurant atop Stark Tower... even more than two hundred meters (660 feet) up, the place was green with trees, the high-altitude wind held off by three-meter (10-foot) windbreak glass. Sitting there, you could look out over all of Manhattan and still feel like you were on a sunny beach.
Here and now, only Tony and Obadiah sat across from each other, the bodyguard Happy standing well off to the side, waiting to bring over the dishes Tony's private chef had prepared.
Tony forked up a tender piece of steak, put it in his mouth, then lifted his red wine for a light sip. "So—what did you make of my performance just now?"
Obadiah dabbed his mouth with the white silk draped across his chest. "What's there to say? Anything Tony produces is a masterpiece. I give you a perfect hundred!"
"Heh, not bad, not bad. And just like that, there's no real Spider-Man left in the world. Even if he confronts me to my face, I've got nothing to fear. And from here on, no matter how hard he works at doing good, the one everyone ends up cheering is still me. Ha ha ha!" Tony laughed, pleased with himself.
Obadiah grinned too. "Exactly—that's the idea! The second he sees the morning news and realizes everything he's done has been dressed up as a gift for you—heh heh heh—tell me, won't that just burn him up?"
Tony picked it up. "That's the whole point—we want him burned up. Burned up enough to come find me. And even if he really is a smart one, swallows it and doesn't come, then the next time he shows his face in New York—heh heh heh..."
"Ha ha ha!" Obadiah laughed heartily, jabbing a finger across the table at Tony. "Whatever district of New York he turns up in, our local Spider-Men will close in on him automatically. Like you said, we're assisting the police—and since we're on the same side as the police, it's only right the police help us out!"
"Now, now, Uncle Obadiah—we're honest businessmen. No coercion, no collusion between officials and merchants. It was Spider-Man—no, wait, it was a certain volunteer! And that volunteer sold us the patent to the neural-pulse weapon of his own free will." Tony explained.
Obadiah frowned. "So you still intend to pay for it?"
Tony thought about it. "Ah. If the pressure from the Department of Defense weren't so heavy, I wouldn't even want to resort to a move like this."
"Tony, we're businessmen. Businessmen—"
Tony cut him off. "Businessmen chase profit, I know! But I'm also an engineer. I've already worked out the principle behind neural-pulse paralysis; the prototype's designed. I have my own dignity. Going to Spider-Man is just to reference his design approach—shorten the time on miniaturization, that's all. As for the money owed, I won't shortchange him a cent!"
Seeing Tony this resolute, Obadiah let it drop—he knew Tony well enough.
As the mood went quiet, Tony seemed to remember something and called out, "Happy—Happy, get over here!"
Happy came trotting over—tromp-tromp-tromp. "Yes, boss? What is it?"
"What was the deal with that reporter this morning?" Tony snapped.
Happy said, wounded, "Didn't you tell me to arrange it—to plant somebody?"
"A plant's fine, but come on—did you have to make it that obvious? Nobody else is asking, and every single time he stands up head and shoulders above the rest to lob his question, leaving me damned if I answer and damned if I don't. Afterward those reporters are going to sniff out the trick... Useless. Can't even plant a guy right. Let a few others ask their questions first, then have him stand up—wouldn't that be more natural?" Tony berated him.
"Then—how about I slip every reporter a fat red envelope?" Happy said.
"On what pretext? To nail down the fact that we planted him? Forget it. Go bring me another plate of caviar. Uncle Obadiah, would you like a—"
We'll leave Tony's affairs for now and pull the timeline back two hours, refocusing on Maya and the others.
"...yes, I'm spederman!"
"I never imagined Tony Stark was this kind of person. To think I actually looked up to him." Matt said, disappointed.
"Maya, what's your read?" Stick asked.
What am I, a detective? What read?
Listening to the system's chime going off nonstop in her head, Maya was over the moon inside. Tony's a good man—knows my Influence has been growing slow lately, so here he comes bearing an assist. And the Spider-Man title? Heh. I've got a whole stack of alt accounts ready. You want one too, Tony?
Of course, in the real world Madam President kept a solemn face and said with righteous gravity, "I help people fight crime—I've never once thought about the glory. I became Spider-Man simply because I wanted to do good. If Tony's approach can help more people, then what's the harm in handing the Spider-Man title over to him?"
Four awed, astonished eyes beamed at her from the two blind men across the table... uh—why did that come out sounding a little strange?
"Haah." At last Stick let out a long sigh. "Maya, I truly underestimated you. I never imagined you had a heart this big. This old man is ashamed by comparison."
At that, Madam President looked up at Stick across the table, then down at her own pint-sized self, and said, deadpan, "Shifu, quit sitting there sighing and think me up a good plan—to save that mutant girl, Liz..."
"Ohh—Liz, Tony... heh heh, I've got it!"
Maya seemed to hit on something all at once and clapped a hand over her mouth, laughing softly.
Stick and Matt both put on the blind man's version of a question-mark face...
That night, the moment it got dark, Maya withdrew cash from the Spider-Man account, had Stick help her buy the newest-model Sony camcorder, then went out herself and picked up a few voice recorders. After that she flipped on Shadow Escape and, without incident, followed the previous night's route to Aldrich Psychiatric Hospital in Queens.
With her Super Senses, Maya easily slipped past the patrols inside, working the camera to capture one appalling scene after another—children being beaten by nurses, subjects strapped down for all manner of experiments, and of course the teenage mutants locked in the dark cells, a key focus of her filming.
To anyone else, she was just a shadow in the corner of the wall... the truth being that Maya was controlling Shadow Escape so precisely that even the camcorder was screened from sight.
And so Maya not only captured plenty of footage of mutants being abused, but made the doctors' out-of-line conversations another target of her recording.
After a few hours of work start to finish, Maya waited for them to clock out, used Shadow Touch to open the door, and strolled brazenly into the researchers' office. She pulled the files right out and ran copies on the office printer—since she'd already located the important documents the night before, today's copying went quick. Another two hours passed, and Maya even opened the computer in the room to take a look—and found there was even more inside.
But she hadn't bought a hard drive. She thought about it. Somebody's already lined up to take the fall, so let's go big tonight. Shit!
With that, Maya pulled the sealing scroll straight off her back...
"Whoa, this computer's custom-built—faster than the IBM I just bought. In it goes!"
Fwump! The whole PC vanished into Maya's sealing scroll.
"Well, in for a penny. Printer—in it goes!"
Fwump! The printer disappeared.
"Whoa—isn't this a sterile temperature-controlled lab chamber? Still sealed in the box. In it goes!"
Fwump! The huge box vanished.
"Oh—sedatives and all these drugs, why are they sitting in the office? Whatever, stuff 'em in!"
Fwump! Several crates of assorted drugs vanished.
...
"Uh—is it full yet? Whatever. None of this has anything to do with Maya Hansen anyway—it's all Spider-Man's doing!"
Madam President dusted off her hands, rolled the scroll back up, tucked it into the pillowcase at her back, and swept the room with a glance. "Mm. Nice and clean. Time to go!"