SPIDER GWEN: EXPOSED CHAPTER 5: August 25’th 11:48.

Saturday, August 25’th. The big day has arrived: the election ceremony, first day of Mayor Norman Osborn in office. This was quite an event, as people were starting to gather at City Hall, ready for the ceremony to start. The place was quite secure, with guards and checkpoints at many locations with both police and private security being present, but also with victory posters of Norman plastered everywhere. The sound of the crowd gathering was quite overwhelming, along with the generic music from the massive speakers. Traffic was diverted by police and car to car searches were conducted for any staff or participant that arrived. Among the pedestrians however, Gwen was having some issues, as the crowd was starting to gather, finding Harry was proving to be difficult.

“Sorry… pardon me… excuse me…” said Gwen as she was making her way through the crowd. From time to time she was looking around while walking in order to see if she could spot him or anyone familiar. At least she was not getting any weird looks from anyone, as her tactic of hiding her scar with part of her haircut and some lipstick was doing the trick. Plus, using a hoodie helped to make her look less conspicuous.  

“Gwen! Over here!” shouted a familiar voice in the distance. Looking to her right, she saw Harry waving at her in the distance, somewhere closer to the stage. He was all dressed nicely and saved a place for her. Making her way towards him, they shared a hug as the ceremony was about to begin “Thanks for coming. It would have been a real bummer if I'd had to be here on my own.”

“I wouldn’t let you alone, Harry. You’ve been away for too long, time to make up for lost time.” replied Gwen, with a cheerful tone, looking around “Seen any other familiar faces here?”

“May and Ben are a few rows behind us and your band mates are also here somewhere. Looks like part of the city came to dad’s ceremony. Quite astonishing, I always assumed he was not very popular.”

“Well, the polls contradict that, otherwise he wouldn’t be on the verge of running New York right now.” said Gwen, just as she could hear the crowd beginning to cheer, as Norman was in sight, getting on the stage “Here he comes! Come on, Harry, cheer up, he is your dad after all!”

“If you say so…” Harry whispered while lowering his head for a second then trying to smile for him. This was a topic that always made him feel let down. Norman’s heart for Harry might be in his right place, but he was having issues showing it. Gwen saw this and tried to cheer him up, hoping one day he will finally get along with his dad.

The ceremony went without a hitch, as city officials were making Norman take the oath and granting him his term as mayor of the city. Soon afterwards, as first mayoral decisions, he decorated Agent Luke Cage for his bravery in stopping the Demons from fleeing with the trucks full of weapons and explosives. From the front of the stage, Gwen saw Luke wasn’t that interested in the decoration and how shy he was at giving his speech to the public. One thing he was interested in was keeping an eye out in order to spot anything suspicious. Standing straight with his arms to his back, he only used the corner of his eye to look around and spot any potential threats among the crowd. There was no risk of him being exposed, as he was wearing sunglasses and everyone was focused on Osborn’s somewhat boring politician-like speech. 

“...in the end, I’m more than honored to be mayor of this great city, full of great people, especially the one who is on the stage with me, risking his neck to stop another potential 9/11. If there are more of Agent Cage here in this city, then terrorists have no chance in Hell. I’ll promise to be mayor for both who voted for me but also for those who didn’t.” said Norman, ending his speech in a hail of applause from the crowd, just as the large screen behind him was being turned on with an incoming presentation. “Now that the boring part is over, please allow me to present the more fun stuff: the pinnacle of city infrastructure management, OscorpOS 2.0. Imagine the city’s traffic system, power management, security system and rapid response all managed by one clever OS. Reliable, efficient and much faster response time in case of emergency or calamity.” 

Over the next fifteen minutes or so, he presented his “masterpiece” on a large screen behind him, showing how every essential piece of infrastructure will be managed by OscorpOS 2.0, among with prediction algorithm that can detect crime probability before it happens, all running via a network of cameras that will be installed all over the city. While part of the crowd was interested in the presentation, Harry looked like he was quite bored. For him, all this was stuff that wasn’t interesting at all. Gwen however, was a bit concerned. Not only this might make her work much harder, since anytime that system could pick her up and predict her moves, thus greatly increasing her chances of being caught, but also something like this would be a great infringement of anyone’s privacy or rights. It reminded her of the surveillance police state she saw in totalitarian regimes, like Spider Punk’s homeworld, who he told her during her time fighting the multiverse Inheritor vampires. However, she pushed this to the back of her mind, saying to herself that she is getting paranoid… but still that lingering concern that things might end up rather dystopian due to this system was not giving her any peace. 

“Excuse me, Mr Mayor,” said a sharp, familiar voice, catching Gwen’s attention. Looking to the source, she saw the last person she’d want to see at that moment: J Jonah Jameson. It looked like he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to grill someone as high ranked as Norman, so he came to do “journalistic” work himself. Seeing nobody looking in her direction, she couldn’t help but discreetly give him the middle finger. “Jameson here, Daily Bugle, but I am sure you know me already. All this looks very nice on paper… actually looks already very eerie. How do you prevent any abuses of the system by overzealous officials OR even worse, potential attacks to the system? As we all remember, this city still remember 2009 with the-”

“Yes, I know you very well, Mr Jameson, I also remember your style of interviewing people very well, appreciate it.” replied Norman, cutting Jameson off, while adjusting his hair “But I assure you, military grade encryption was used to secure the source code of OscorpOS. An incident similar to the one in 2009 will never happen again. Besides, if anyone tries anything, facial recognition software can ID anyone, anywhere. There is no escape for criminals.”

“Guaranteed catch of criminals?” asked Jameson, intrigued over this little detail “Even a certain-?”

“Yes. No mask can save you if you commit a crime.”

“No further questions.” quickly replied Jameson, satisfied by this information. Upon hearing this, Gwen could bet all her money that Jonah would be thrilled to see this system implemented as soon as possible, as it would mean it will be used to catch her..    

The ceremony was almost over, with Norman stepping off the stage in order to conduct some business while other officials took the microphone to announce other events. However, as he was leaving, his phone started to ring. 

“Yes?”

“I’ve worked years for this moment, Norman. And now, the time has come...” said a voice via the call. Whoever was calling, used a scrambler to disguise it, much to Osborn’s confusion.

“Who is this?”

“Over the following weeks, your company, your city, and everyone you care about will be destroyed. People will be begging you for help, but you won’t be able to save them.” replied the mysterious caller. At this point, Norman signaled his security about the call in order to try and trace it.

“Heh… listen, asshole. I get threats like these so often I can adjust my clock according to them and they start to sound pretty boring. Yours is no exception. So, why don’t you grow some balls and tell me exactly what you want?”

“What do I want? I want to see you cry and fall into utter madness as everything that you fought so hard to build, gets destroyed. Enjoy the show.” said the caller before abruptly hanging up, leaving Osborn quite confused. At this point, security immediately took him away, telling him something was going on.  

Back in the crowd, Gwen was suddenly having quite a headache, as her spider sense immediately went off and it went off big time. It felt like there was great danger, but it was not coming from just one source, but multiple. Discreetly moving away from Harry, she started to move among the crowd, hoping she could pinpoint the sources of what was making her sense to warn her in such a manner. Only less than a minute later, she saw much to her horror, what was the cause: a couple of paramedics exited a nearby ambulance, but instead of medical gear, they were wearing something that made Gwen’s blood run cold: bomb vests. To add to the horror, both had the same black and white glow, a clear sign they were corrupted by Mister Negative. But before she could even react, both of them detonated their vests, devastating part of the building behind them. 

“F*ck!!!!!” shouted Gwen after she saw the explosion and the crowd immediately panicked. Seconds later, another explosion happened on the other end of the street, near where she was initially “Oh no! HARRY!!! MAY!!!! BEN!!!!” 

Running towards the stage, she didn’t saw anyone familiar, as the crowd was dispersing, but after a glimpse of the stage, immediately noticed another suicide bomber behind unsuspecting Luke.

“Cage! BEHIND YOU!!!!” She then pointed towards his back.Turning around, Luke immediately saw the corrupted City Hall employee, who just unveiled his bomb vest and activated it. Thinking fast, he pushed the bomber off the stage and threw himself on the other officials, shielding them with his body, moments before the explosion. It was powerful enough to cause the entire light rig and scaffolding to collapse and bury them all underneath. 

Before she could react to the carnage unveiling around her, two ambulances rushed in at high speed, sirens blazing. However, nobody saw the corrupted drivers holding detonators in their hands, ready to trigger the explosive load in the backs of the ambulances. Seconds later after stopping near City Hall, both vehicles exploded with such force, it knocked her to the ground, making her lose consciousness. Part of the City Hall building collapsed, while a few more explosions happened, completing the devastation, killing more innocent people.

Drifting between unconscious and barely awake, Gwen could hear screams, sirens and also was seeing glimpses of the aftermath, seeing the sky being covered in smoke, some fires or even bits of smoldering debris still falling. Laying on the ground on her back, she also saw people running or carrying other injured civilians. Next thing she was able to see after another passing out again and regaining her senses for another few minutes, was Harry pulling her away from the disaster area and trying to wake her up.

“Gwen? Can you hear me?... Gwen!... Squeeze my hand if you can hear me…! Come on…!” Harry’s voice could be barely heard as her hearing was muffled and felt like she couldn’t move. Eventually, she felt being picked up by two people and placed on a stretcher. At first the second silhouette was too dark to be seen, but after passing a burning car, she saw it was Janet who was helping Harry carry her out of the disaster zone and out of the perimeter. She was in her Wasp combat suit, scanning her for signs of life. After that, Gwen felt like everything was getting dark, as she fell back into unconsciousness.

Waking up suddenly, giving a loud gasp, Gwen thought it was a bad dream, but looking around and saw herself in Janet’s lab, she realized it was no dream at all. The injuries she sustained and partly burned hand was another dead giveaway that everything that happened was real. A TV that was turned on was playing the news and showed the aftermath of the City Hall bombing that happened four days ago: 143 people dead, over 600 injured and the entire City Hall area looked like a warzone. Part of the buildings in the area and around the park collapsed and burned, lots of fires, debris, burning and destroyed cars, and to her horror, a lot of blurred spots on the screen where dead bodies were lying on the ground, still to be taken away by authorities. From the first investigations, it turned out the suicide bombers were all either police officers that were running security or EMT personnel. 

“Oh, God… oh, God…” whispered Gwen, shaking after hearing the report. She recognized some of the officers who blew themselves up and knew them as honest officers, incapable of conducting such horrific acts, but then remembered how those paramedics and the city official behind Luke were glowing in the same manner, a clear sign they were all controlled by Mister Negative and made them kill themselves with bomb vests. Just then, Janet entered the lab and rushed towards her after she saw her friend close to having a breakdown. Following her, Harry also rushed to her side, trying to calm her down. 

“Gwen, calm down. You need to relax, the cocktail I am administering needs to settle and revitalize you.” said Janet as she held her arm, trying to calm her down while checking her vitals.

“Gwen, relax, I’m here. You’re safe. You’re in Dr Van Dyne’s lab. She said due to your condition it is best to be treated by her instead of the hospital” said Harry in a calm manner, quickly embraced by Gwen after she settled down and saw he was there. He had some scratches, but he was alive.

“You’re alive, thank God…. I thought I lost you too.” said Gwen, not letting go as she kept hugging him for over a minute “Where’s May and Ben?”

“They’re fine. May just got out of hospital, Ben will be out later this week.”

“What? Harry, what happened?” asked Gwen, visibly scared over the news that the Parkers got caught in the explosion.

“They’re fine. May had some scratches and bruises thanks to Ben saving her. He suffered a concussion but recovered. Just came from the hospital after I left him something to eat until he gets released.”

This hit her hard, after hearing the Parkers were hurt, but also was making her blood boil. It was already unforgivable what Mister Negative did, but hurting May and Ben was personal. 

It took her entire willpower to not storm out of the lab and hunt Negative down, small yet visible tendrils were moving under her skin, a sign that the symbiote within her was reacting to her suppressed rage. 

“I swear that I will make you pay for this… Negative.” 

END OF ACT 1

previous chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/spider-gwen-4-145766128

This concludes Act 1 of this story arc. Act 2 will be posted after New Years, as i will be on a small vacation. There will be a Christmas special post soon, stay tuned.