Episode Three: The Spider Strikes: A series of giant spider attacks perplex Science Investigator Gwen Montgomery and her new partner, Ray Murdock.
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The
Spider Strikes
(continued)
“Since my father died—excuse me, shorty—” Howard Phelps Junior reached a brawny, flannel-suited arm past Steve, pulled out a box and glanced inside, then scribbled notes on the clipboard in his other hand. “—profits have been skyrocketing. Phelps is now the front-runner for working with Eckert-Mauchly on their new OMNIVAC computer.”
Stepping over some shattered glass and a broken shelf—Gwen had told Phelps not to clean up until they’d looked around—Steve decided Gwen was right about boring. But, she’s right; that’s better than fighting the spider again.
“There.” Phelps handed the notes to Gwen with a smile and a quick glance at her chest. “A list of everything damaged last night, though thanks to you tossing grenades, it’s hard to say what the spider might have gone after.
He’s got a point. The handmine blast had toppled the nearest shelves, and those had toppled a couple more, leaving smashed crates and vacuum tubes littering the floor.
Gwen glanced through the papers, nodding as if they meant something. “So, Howard, have you any idea who could be capable of building that spider? I realize you’re not the expert your father was—”
“My father was overrated.” Phelps stopped smiling and smacked his large fist into his right palm. “A genius, sure, but people don’t realize he squandered millions on pie in the sky gadgets that never panned out.”
“Hell of a thing to say about your pop,” Steve muttered, not so softly Phelps couldn’t hear.
“Don’t get me wrong, he was a great guy,” Phelps replied quickly. “It’s tragic he was in New York during the dinosaur rampage, but—the company’s just better off in my hands, that’s all.”
“Except for Cable.” Steve glared up at the man. “If you’re making so much goddamn money, junior, maybe you should have more men on guard when there’s a robot stealing crap? And maybe you should build rayguns that actually work?”
“Like I said, shorty, my pop’s inventions didn’t all work.” Phelps moved closer, towering over Steve, but pretty much everyone did, so it didn’t bother Steve much. “I thought I’d fixed it, but—hell, why am I arguing with you? Miss Montgomery, where do I report your partner for impertinence?”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary, Howard.” Without batting an eye, Gwen smoothly drew her gun. “Mr. Phelps, you are under arrest.”
“For what?” Phelps let out a nervous bray of a laugh and folded his arms. “Arguing with the shrimp?”
“Steve, please use the handcuffs.” Gwen popped open her purse and indicated for him to reach into it. “The list of damages you gave me is a lie. I checked with your suppliers this morning and everything they shipped here this past week was antiquated by Engineers Row standards.”
“He was ripping off the insurers?” Steve yanked out the cuffs. “Can we arrest people for that?”
“I’m pretty sure you can’t!” Phelps said, loudly. “You want to get sued for false arrest, Flanagan, you go right ahead.”
Steve glanced at Gwen; she shook her head. “It isn’t false, Mr. Flanagan. This is the first company that hasn’t suffered catastrophic damage from the spider thefts; that’s the real reason he’s the front runner for supplying OMNIVAC.”
“You paralyzed your own man?” Steve raised the cuffs. “Get your arms out, Junior or I’ll—”
Then Steve heard the rapid-fire beat of metal footsteps behind him, turned and saw the spider approaching, its legs flashing green.
He yelled out a warning to Gwen, stepping between her and the spider and snatching up a broken shelf to block the attack as the spider’s legs thrust forward. It caught the shelf, sent it flying from Steve’s hands with a twist and jabbed for him. Steve sprang back, hearing a shot behind him but unable to turn and look. He grabbed up a longer piece of bench and thrust it into the spider’s face, hoping to keep it too far away to touch him.
“Hold it if you can!” Gwen called from up the aisle. “I’ll try to catch up with Howard.”
“Oh, sure, I’ll just—” The spider yanked the shelf away again with steely strength. Steve backed up, hurling whatever he could pull off the shelves at the robot’s face without slowing it that he could see.
“Don’t give up!” Phelps called with a laugh from somewhere amidst the shelving. “She runs down after thirty minutes, that’s why my pop never marketed her. All you have to do is outlast her!”
“Screw you, Junior!” Steve turned the corner into the next aisle, stumbled over an empty crate and hit the concrete hard. Before he could get up again, the spider was rushing away. “Look out, Gwen, it got past me.”
As he got to his feet he heard Gwen shoot, heard Junior laugh, tried to guess the quickest route to him. He must have palmed the controls when he folded his arms, or maybe it was automatic somehow. Kept us talking…
“This cannot work, Howard, you must see that.” Gwen’s voice, but there was a solid block of fallen shelving in the aisle Steve thought would lead to her. “The spider pulls its first-ever daylight robbery somewhere there’s nothing left to steal? Safer to cooperate, help cure the vic—” Steve heard a gunshot, a sudden scream, then it faded into silence.
The spider rose up over the top of the fallen shelving, descending toward him fast. Steve turned, started to run, almost stumbled into a big empty crate and an idea hit. He dragged the crate with him as the spider reached the concrete floor and charged, legs glowing brightly as they lashed out at Steve.
Steve’s arms screamed as he lifted the heavy crate, blocked the legs, then tipped the crate upside down and over the robot, legs and all. He steeled himself for it to try and break free. It didn’t.
“Another flaw in the design.” Phelp’s voice; Steve turned, saw the man standing behind him. “No obvious target, it goes to sleep.” Phelp’s pressed something in his hand and the crate began jerking beneath Steve. “Unless I wake it up.”
“So what?” Steve ran at Phelps, fists raised. “By the time it gets out, you’re going to be down for the count.”
“You short guys, always with a chip on your—” Junior broke off with a gasp as Steve landed a jab in his gut, followed it with a roundhouse to the jaw. To Steve’s surprise, Junior ducked the punch and slammed a blow into Steve’s ribs that knocked Steve back against the shelves.
“Boxing champ of my college, shorty.” Steve barely ducked the next, lightning-fast blow, felt the follow-up blow graze his right arm so hard it went numb. “And a good big man, always beats a mediocre—.”
“Says you!” Steve thrust again for Junior’s gut, but the man stepped past the punch, threw his arms around Steve in a crushing bear hug and began to push him back down the aisle. Steve twisted his head and saw the spider waiting with its glowing legs raised.
Steve raised his heel, then brought it down hard on Phelps’ instep. The man gave a pained yell and his grip loosened, enough for Steve to sink another punch in his stomach. Behind them, glass crunched under metal. Without taking time to look, Steve broke free of Junior’s grip, swung him around and delivered another punch, one that sent him staggering into the spider. Green light covered Phelps, and he fell on top of the spider, his mouth frozen as if he’d just begun to scream.
The spider started to lift him off. Steve picked up a piece of crate and whacked it down on Phelps’ hand, smashing the control gadget. The spider stopped moving. Steve started to smile. Sonofabitch, I got him! Mike Hammer couldn’t have done it better!
“I’m glad to see you’re still able to move.” Gwen moved stiffly into the aisle, smiling, her red dress smeared with dirt. “I managed to shield myself from the worst effects with some packing material, but it still took me a few seconds to recover.”
She pulled a lighter and cigarettes from her purse as she studied the unmoving man and machine. Steve pulled out one of his own and accepted a light. “Tell me something, lady—how’d you know to look up what Junior had in the warehouse.”
“If you know the people, you can usually find the answers.” She knelt down, studying the robot thoughtfully. “Despite his boasting, I knew the company has been on a downhill slide since his father died. And in hindsight, his insistence on me using the rifle was suggestive.”
“You didn’t tell me any of that.”
“You were at the scene of the crime last night, and you offered no explanation—”
“You thought I was in on this?”
“Possibly. I figured keeping you around might tell me.” She pulled the smashed controls from Phelps’ hand. “The past quarter-hour made it obvious you and Palmer weren’t working together, so I took action. I didn’t anticipate the spider attacking—though in hindsight, miniaturized controls like these are typical of his father’s inventions.”
“What about the paralysis? With Junior frozen—”
“I rather doubt he knew how to cure it. But with the robot to study, the TSC lab may be able to find a treatment.”
“Swell.” The thought of Cable and the other victims back on their feet made Steve smile again. “Well, guess I’ll take my hundred. Gonna make for an easy ride out to California.”
“Job waiting for you?” Gwen pulled out her wallet and started counting twenties.
“Family. My brother’s…kind of a DP. We lost touch.”
“Easy enough to do these days. So—no job?”
“I got a hundred, don’t I?” Steve tucked the money into his pocket. “When it’s gone, I’ll still get by.”
“Well, if you’d like to do more than get by, I have a friend, Nate Strawn, and he just became head of Science Investigations in California’s TSC office. If things don’t improve around here, I may transfer to his team myself; Nate will make damn sure none of his agents take liberties with their partners.” Steve listened without much interest. “In any case, given that SI is as strapped for manpower as the rest of the country, I think I could convince Nate to hire you.”
“Me, a cop?” It was the best laugh Steve had had in a while. “You gotta be kidding.”
“Oh, you’d need plenty of training, but you didn’t lose your head when you faced the spider; that’s a great advantage given what science investigators deal with. Furthermore, you can handle working with a woman, and you care enough about strangers to stick up for an old Jewish—”
“How’d you know that?” Then Steve slapped himself on the forehead. “Right, the police report.”
“Know the people, I told you.” She obviously enjoyed that she’d impressed him. “I’ve seen what some scientists do to their guinea-pigs—I think you’d get a lot of satisfaction stopping men like that.”
Steve thought again about Verdugo’s experiments all those years ago and nodded, slowly. Having a badge could help with finding Tommy, maybe. And if they’ve got files, maybe I could figure out what Verdugo was doing. But still—a cop?
“Don’t say no.” Gwen started tapping out a code on her wrist radio. “The new TSC base will open outside Wind Song, California, starting in April. Stop by and see what it’s like.”
“I see what it’s like.” Steve kicked the spider’s side, then winced. “Ducking robots, dealing with losers like Junior. Maybe you’re enough of a screwball to do that every day, but me?”
Even if it was kind of fun showing a jerk like Junior where he gets off.
Even if I would get one of those wrist radios.
Still, Matt’s right, I’m gonna have to find a job someday ... It couldn’t hurt to stop by, at least to look around, right?