Chapter 5
Guitar in hand, Hobie was crouched out of the Roxxon North Building.
Stealth sounded like a great idea. Stealth sounded safe and sane and somehow easier than going in headfirst. But Hobie had no plan. If Miles was being kept somewhere against his will, Hobie was going to need his guitar to get him out. A disguise was out of the question. Taking Roxxon head on was out of the question. And that left Hobie with the option of complete and utter stealth.
He was going to die for the boy who told him that he didn’t need him.
Of course he was.
Hobie swung around the building from a distance he hoped didn’t raise any flags. He was searching for a way in other than the front door, see, but it didn’t exactly look like the architects at Roxxon liked the concept of windows that could open.
So Hobie walked in through the front doors like a sane man who wanted to live a long, happy life.
He walked up to the quartz desk in the quartz lobby made with quartz floors and quartz ceilings. A big chandelier hung from the ceiling. Rows and rows of couches made a little seating area. One pathetic tree was struggling to grow in a pot in the corner but looked as though it hadn’t been watered since water was invented. Hobie leaned on the desk, looking the receptionist up and down in her little pencil skirt and “effortless” bob, and drummed his fingers against the stone.
“Hate to be a bother- can you tell me anythin’ about the energy plans you have here?”
The lady took a moment to collect herself. She had pretty, manicured nails and perfect eyeliner. Hobie gave her a smile. “Do you have an appointment?” She asked, turning to her computer.
“Nah.” Hobie rose to his full height. “Just a concerned member of the public, yeah?”
“I’m sorry, sir-”
“Nah, I don’t want none of that.” Hobie smiled. “No sirs. You’re good. I appreciate what you’re tryna do, I do, but I’ve not got time for this. I’d like to speak to someone, anyone really, about the energy plan?”
Her face softened. “Roxxon isn’t offering plans quite yet-”
“I’m not looking to hand over any bees and honey, love.” Hobie tapped the desk. “I’d just like to speak to someone.” He shrugged the shoulder his guitar strap was hung from. “I’ve got a gig in an hour, if you’ve got time.”
Hobie was good at stonewalling people. He watched the poor receptionist flail for a moment, struggling to find a way to deny him, to make him march back out the door, but she gave him a terse smile and started typing on her computer. “Let me see if there are any agents available.”
“Brilliant.”
Apparently the Roxxon guards with red armor were limited in this part of New York because the men who came to escort Hobie further into the building were wearing nice suits. Hobie knew though, just looking them up and down, that they meant trouble. He went willingly either way, thanking the poor girl at the front desk.
“And how’s the day, gents?” He asked the guards.
“We’re going to have to pat you down sir. You understand.” One said. Hobie nodded and spread his arms in consent.
When you play guitar, you get really good at holding teeny tiny pieces of plastic between sweaty fingers. Keeping your grip on a pick while you’re playing fast paced songs can be agony. It meant that Hobie was also great at slight of hand tricks. He tapped the release button on his web shooters and rolled the disks into his palms when they unstuck from his stud bracelet and watch. When one of the guards started patting down his arm and then reached his hand, Hobie opened his fists with the disks pinched between his fingers in such a way that they were only visible from one side of his hand- the side the guard wasn’t on. Once the guards seemed satisfied, Hobie was able to clench his fists and use his fingers to slot the web shooters back into place.
Close one.
A woman in a similarly boring suit opened a nearby door that led further into the building. “This way, sir.”
“No need for that.” Hobie grinned. He walked past her with a nod. He was escorted down the hallway her and one of the guards who pat him down. They led him to another waiting room with another little couch and another dying tree. There was a coffee table with People Magazines on them. Two doors with frosted glass windows looked like they led into the office of someone important. Hobie sat on the couch and kicked up his feet as the guards stood by the door.
Hobie shot a spider web at the camera in the corner of the room. “Sorry about this.” Hobie said. He heard the click of weapon but his web shooters were already deployed. Hobie grabbed either guard by the head with his webs and yanked, wincing as their skulls cracked together. Not hard enough, apparently, because the man staggered for a moment before lunging at him. Hobie jumped up onto the ceiling, pulled his guitar down from his back, and jumped down to bludgeon the guard with it. He fell to the ground hard.
Hobie’s spidey sense whined. He spun around in time to catch the fist of the woman who had gotten back to her senses. He dropped his guitar and punched her across the face. Her jaw hit the back of the couch and she crumpled to the floor next to the other guard. Now working on borrowed time, Hobie scooped up his guitar, ran out into the hall, and began to venture into the endless halls of Roxxon once more. He dug his mask out from where he had tucked it into his belt and wrestled it over his wicks as though the cameras hadn't already caught him with it off.
He got lost pretty quick. A lot of Hobie’s decisions were led by his spidey sense complaining when he reached for a doorknob or was about to turn the wrong corner. He knew that he stumbled into someone, anyone, Hobie was done for. But the building was changing around him. The bright quartz walls changed into sterile linoleum and then that changed into grated floors and reinforced walls. The whirr of machinery and the sound of Hobie’s boots on the metal was the only sound he could hear as he ran through the Roxxon hallways.
A door stood in his way. A warning sign portrayed unstable electrical fields. Hobie reached for the doorknob but felt the hair on his arms stand up. Hobie knew Miles was through there. He also knew that something else was through there. What Hobie would give to be able to turn invisible.
He wrenched open the door. It felt like time was slowing down. Two Roxxon employees in lab coats were talking about their latest test. A guard in Roxxon’s typical red fatigues was sat on a stool by a person with a red cross on the band on their arm who was treating a bite mark on her hand. Hobie saw the guard’s head turn to him in slow motion and knew he had to act fast as his eyes landed on the gun on the floor.
Hobie webbed himself into the corner of his room. He used another web to snatch up the weapon and stuck it to the ceiling. He webbed the medic’s hand to the guard’s hand and jumped towards the two scientists trying to flee. Hobie grabbed one of their lab coats, wrapped it around the other, and bound them together before shooting another web at the guard when she opened her mouth to yell.
With a flick of his wrist, Hobie sent a web up to the ceiling. He attached one end to the scientists he had tied together and pulled, flipping them both upside down with twin yelps and hanging them there. He ducked right when the guard tried to barrel into him, side stepping and throwing a punch. The guard was expecting it and blocked his fist but Hobie kicked her in the stomach and webbed her to the wall. He turned around and faced the medic. It was a war crime to attack a medic. But she was working for Roxxon. And if countries during times of war didn’t obey the Genova convention, he didn’t have to either.
Hobie was nice, though, and webbed her to the wall without knocking her silly. Once all four of the people in the room were subdued, Hobie took a deep breath. He reinforced some webs here and there, reapplied the webs over his hostages’ mouths. When he wasn’t worrying about fighting for his life, Hobie was able to examine the room. It was boring, to be honest. Nothing special. A few control panels bolted into the wall and big screens showing numbers Hobie couldn’t make sense of. There was a door, though, a big metal door with studs that made it look like something from a submarine.
Hobie pushed it open. The heavy iron creaked as it swung on tired hinges. The door was at least three inches thick. Hobie felt his heart leap into his mouth.
Miles sat in the center of the room. He was rigged to a metal chair that looked like it belonged in a dentist’s office with too-thin shiny black cushioning. Metal beams crossed over Miles’ torso and lap. His hands were held to the arm rests by similar looking cuffs. His ankles were bound to the footrest too. His masked head was slumped forwards, eyes barely open. Wires that disappeared into the floor were stuck to his stomach and neck by small sensors. His suit top had been shucked up and his mask was lifted to sit over his nose. Miles must have bit the guard for trying to take off his mask. If Hobie wasn’t so hurt and wasn’t so terrified, he might have swooned. The room was small and dark and Hobie’s stomach dropped when Miles spasmed, letting out a breathy sound of pain before yellow lines on the wall briefly lit up only to fade once more. Hobie could see it if he focussed on it- small touches of lightning around the sensors.
They were using him as a human battery.
Hobie ran deeper into the room. He picked up Miles’ head by cupping his face, hands shaking at how weak Miles was.
“Miles, love.” Hobie said. He knelt in front of Miles and looked up at the tired eyes of his mask as he tugged it back over Miles’ chin. “Love. You there?”
No response. Miles’ head lolled into Hobie’s hand and the eyes on his mask shut.
“No, no Miles. Awake darling, I need you awake.”
Miles tensed. Hobie’s spidey sense screamed. He snapped his hands away before Miles spasmed for the second time, a long whine falling out of his throat as the machines he was hooked up to pulled from him again. The lights on the walls grew and faded.
Weakly, Miles blinked his eyes until they were open. Hobie didn’t have time to waste, grabbing at the sensors on Miles’ skin and throwing them to the floor. Miles felt red hot. Dangerously so. Hobie heard the deafening sound of a large machine powering down and knew that his time to get Miles out of the chair was limited. He needed to hurry or he would wind up being bolted down right next to Miles.
With all of his spider-imbued might, Hobie wrapped his fingers around the cuffs on Miles’ wrists and pulled. He felt the metal giving away, creaking under his hands. Even with Hobie digging his heels into the floor and putting his back into it, pulling one cuff open enough that Miles could slip his hands through took way too long to be comfortable. Worse yet, Hobie would need to break the binds over Miles’ chest and legs entirely to get him out.
His spidey sense twinged. Hobie spun around and shot a web at the door. It splat uselessly against a Roxxon guard’s shield. A tall, blonde man with blue eyes stood in the doorway, grinning. “You must be Hobie!”
He was cornered. Miles was still trapped. The machine was still whirring. Hobie felt a blind panic building up as the man tossed him his hard drive. Hobie caught it in one fist but didn’t move further than that.
“Nice reflexes.” The man praised. “I didn’t know there was another Spiderman. How do you guys do it? Is there a club?”
Hobie didn’t answer. He stepped back, closer to Miles, and reached for his guitar strap.
“Nuh uh uh.” The man said. A gun was pointed at Hobie’s chest by a second guard. “Do you do the zappy thing too? Forget that, actually. You look crazy! What’s going on with your little hard drive there, huh? I noticed it sure was twitching a lot.”
Hobie considered it for a second. Opening a portal preferably underneath Miles’ chair and disappearing. But that would take time to open, time Hobie didn’t have. Not to mention that reaching for his watch would end up him being gunned down or that allowing civilians/supervillains access another dimension could prove to be catastrophic.
“He’s boring me.” The man said to his guard. He stepped back, out of the room. “Deal with him, would you? And call me if he can do the zappy thing. Non-lethal force, fellas!”
More guards filled the doorway. Hobie had a feeling that he was going to be sore after this.
He lunged at the first guy. The poor guard tried the ol’ Roman shove to knock Hobie down, but Hobie had gotten good at jumping off riot shields. He put his foot on the top of it and let the guard’s momentum throw him into the air. Hobie swung his guitar around his shoulder, fished his pick out from the strings, and kicked the guard in the head as he ran his fingers down the frets and began to play.
First guy out. Nine more to go.
Luckily, they were playing nice with him. Releasing a spray of bullets into the room wasn’t in Roxxon’s best interest if they intended on using Miles (and Hobie) for batteries. Hobie was able to back further into the room and he knocked down the next row of guards trying to get inside with another peal of music off his guitar after messing with the dials. With them off their feet and more people trying to shoulder into the room, Hobie covered the knocked-down guards in webs and nearly shouted in delight as the oncoming traffic got their feet stuck. The ceilings were too low for Hobie to really be able to do much up there, so he had to rely on his fists to get the two oncoming guards who hadn’t been stuck subdued by the time the others were free from his webs.
Worse still, Hobie needed to find a faster way to get Miles out of his restraints. Even with the machine no longer attached to him, Miles wasn’t moving, slumped in the chair like dead weight.
Hobie felt an alarm going off in his head. The whirr of a machine was back. A canon launched a piece of wire weighted at both ends at Hobie and it wrapped around his arm. Almost immediately, Hobie felt a little weaker. A little slower. Anti-spider technology. Just great. Just as Hobie shook his wrist hoping for the thing to fall off, one of the guards was in front of him and cracking him across the face.
He ducked under the next one and finally the wire fell off. Hobie punched the guard in the solar plexus and kneed the guy in the face when he buckled. The second person, though, grabbed the back of Hobie’s war vest and yanked him back before using the momentum to slam him into the wall. Hobie felt his ears ringing in complaint of the rough treatment, but when the guard stomped forwards to deliver the final blow, Hobie grasped them by the shoulders and threw his head forward. One of his spikes went right through the red glass of an eyepiece and another tore through the metal. The Roxxon guard collapsed and Hobie webbed up onto the short ceiling to get out of the corner now that the others were freed.
Three down, six to go.
The canon that had shot the wire at him was reloaded. Hobie had heard of stuff like this before, things that altered electrical fields and impacted Electros and Spider people with electric capabilities but had minor effects of pretty much anyone who needed the electrical signals from their brain to move. Which was everyone. Penny had encountered a nasty one once and almost lost another robot. Hobie couldn’t let himself be hit again, his cheek already swelling, but he could use them to his advantage. He stuck his guitar pick between his teeth.
The machine started to purr in the hands of the Roxxon guard. Hobie bent his knees, ready to move once it fired. The crackling piece of machinery was launched towards him and Hobie dropped down, caught the wire midair, and slapped it against the bar on Miles’ chest before the weighted ends could swing around and wrap around his wrist. Hobie ducked a punch from another guard and, while his head was down, let his guitar strap fall from his shoulder so he could grab it by the neck and swing it like a club into the guard’s back.
Fumbling with the awkward weight of his guitar, Hobie pinned its body against his hip with his forearm since he was lacking the support of his guitar strap and turned down the volume before increasing the frequency. Next time he brought his pick down on the strings, the Roxxon guards clutched their heads. That wasn’t Hobie’s goal, but he wasn’t complaining as they stumbled over each other. What he did see, though, was the wire against Miles’ chest short circuit. The chair went chkt-chung and the bolt over Miles’ chest popped open.
Okay, Hobie thought. Just need to do that three more times, knock out six more guards, and not die. Easy.
He took more hits than he was willing to admit, but between his experience beating Thunderbolt soldiers with their riot shields and batons and the way the Roxxon guards reacted to him playing his guitar, Hobie was beginning to feel pretty cocky. It scared him, of course, because getting cocky encouraged him to ignore his spider sense. He yanked a shield out of one guard’s hands and slammed it into another before webbing them into the wall with the shield holding them against it. He dodged a tackle and used his guitar to knock the person to the floor. There was an itch in the back of Hobie’s mind, whining, complaining, and when he held his wrist up to the next guard with a shield, his web shooters clicked.
He tried again. Click.
Hobie was out of web fluid.
“For fucks sake.” He snarled.
His shoulder was smarting from where he had been struck. His face was still throbbing and he was feeling a little lethargic after the last wire stayed wrapped around his hand for a bit two long. The only cuff left on Miles was the one on his arm. There were still two guards, one with the canon and one with a shield, and Hobie needed to find a way to take out both of them without his web slinger. He could use his guitar, sure, but it wouldn’t be enough to knock them out without an amp and he didn’t have webs to pin them down.
That meant Hobie left his guitar on the floor to get rid of the dead weight and had to rely on his fists. He leapt towards the guard with the canon, bringing up his leg and stepping on the crux of their arm. It took a lot of momentum and core strength, but Hobie stood up as the guard tried to yank their arm away. He bent down, grabbed the canon, and snatched it up as the panicked Roxxon employee dropped it. Hobie tucked his legs to his chest and spun behind both the guards, closing his finger around the trigger.
The wire went around the unarmed guard’s upper arm. The body armor across their chest, thighs, and head began to crackle and they screamed, reaching for the buckles of the armor in an attempt to rip it off. Hobie landed, tossed the canon to the ground, and ripped the shielded guard off them as they tried to help. With the shield out of the way, Hobie headbutt them and watched them crumple to the floor.
The person trapped in their armor was still making sounds of pain, still trying to grab the buckles with shaky hands. Hobie cursed himself and reached for the jaw of their helmet, wincing when the confused electricity of the armor shocked him, and yanked it off. He punched the guy as hard as he could and he crumpled to the ground. Only after the final guard collapsed and stayed still did Hobie yank the wire off them to prevent the armor from doing any more damage.
He did it. He actually did it. Hobie was exhausted and his head was swimming and there was a deep desire in Hobie’s bones to collapse to his knees and take a nap. There was more to be done, though, and he activated a portal with his watch that connected to Miles’ before making a bee line for the chair he was still strapped in. Hopefully Jefferson kept his word.