He hadn’t gotten himself into this situation by choice. He’d been tracking a low-level fence named Marty Barras, a.k.a. “Blush” (M. Barras, ha-ha), in hopes of getting him alone for a private chat about any recent dealings in high-tech equipment. Blush had a well-known fear of heights, making him an ideal subject for Spidey’s characteristic brand of intimidation, also known as “Have you met my friend gravity?” Unfortunately, Spidey had apparently come across him just as he was about to make a deal with some arms smugglers. Their lookout had spotted him, and they’d proceeded to give Blush an impromptu infomercial for their wares, with Spidey as the special celebrity guest. Hence his current exposure to levels of workplace noise far exceeding OSHA recommendations. Which was nothing compared to the risk of lead exposure.

  The wisecracks came unbidden to his mind out of long habit. But he cast them aside, reminding himself that he had no time to fool around. This was a distraction from his pursuit of answers, and he had to dispose of it as quickly as possible. Which was easier said than done. Normally, he could have webbed these guns to uselessness in moments. But he had to conserve his webbing now. Every time he got near his apartment, whether MJ was home or not, his spider-sense drove him away. He couldn’t use webbing profligately, because he didn’t know what his chances were of getting a refill anytime soon.

  Enough fooling around, then. The wooden rafters had already taken damage from the gunfire. He hopped down on a particularly perforated one and kicked with all his might, breaking a wide chunk of it loose and sending it hurtling down at the gunmen. The ringing in their ears no doubt deafened them to the crack, and the muzzle flashes in the darkness obscured their sight, so they didn’t realize what was coming until it was too late. Two of them were pinned under the heavy beam, and the others scattered. Just one of the many reasons why guns are more trouble than they’re worth.

  But Spidey was already kicking at the support column, breaking it free of the rafter on the other side and snapping it in two. He wedged his body between the pieces and pushed them apart, snapping the column at its base and riding it down toward one of the gunmen. The man dodged the rafter before it could crush his legs, but Spidey’s fist made sure he was no longer a threat. Behind him, the section of rafters he’d pushed against, along with the piece of the roof it had supported, collapsed on top of the other gunmen. He bounded over to make sure they were alive and incapacitated, not necessarily in that order.

  He knew it wasn’t like him to be this callous. But he felt besieged, on the run, sensing enemies at every turn. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down or be distracted from the mission, and he was too weary in his heart to let it feel for those who sought to stop its beating. The gunmen were out of the fight; that was what mattered. Let intensive care deal with the rest of it.

  And bringing the house down proved to have one benefit—all he had to do was approach Blush Barras and the fence began begging for mercy and spilling his guts. Spider-Man was almost disappointed at how easy it was.

  “What do you know about the robot attacks? Who’s behind them?” Spidey demanded.

  “I—I don’t know,” Blush cried, living up to his nick name as he flushed beet red from fear. “I don’t know nothin’ about those. I swear!” he shrieked as Spidey stepped closer. “I’m outta the loop on this, swear to God! With all the jobs gettin’ pulled on high-tech firms lately, I’d’a figured somethin’ would be comin’ my way, but there’s nothin’! All that stuff gettin’ ripped off and none of it bein’ fenced! Don’t make no sense!”

  Spidey absorbed that information, though he wasn’t surprised by it. If the equipment wasn’t being fenced, it was being used—by someone who knew how to use it. “Have you heard anything about the people behind the thefts?”

  “No, no. Like I said, nobody’s come to me.”

  “Are there even rumors? Anyone working in robotics?”

  “I don’t—maybe—”

  “Spit it out!”

  “The Tinkerer! I heard somethin’s up with him.”

  “What?”

  “I dunno! Just somethin’! All’s I know, I swear!”

  “You’re lying! The Tinkerer’s out of town!”

  “He got back! A few days ago! That’s all I know! Just don’t hurt me!”

  Spidey heard the sirens coming. It might cost him an informant in the future, but he had no tolerance for anyone who’d participate in selling assault rifles to schoolkids—least of all in his current mood. “No such luck, pal,” he said, and knocked Barras out with a tap to the jaw.

  The Tinkerer, he thought as he climbed up and out the hole in the roof. Now, there’s a promising lead. He sells technology to other criminals, sometimes even to good guys. He’d have no problem working with Jameson on this.

  But wait—Felicia swore he was clean. And she didn’t warn me he was coming back. Could she have turned on me, too? Is there anyone left I can trust?

  Only myself, he answered. I have to trust myself. Or I have nothing.

  * * *

  THANKS to Felicia, Spidey knew the location of the Tinkerer’s current workshop, tucked away in an industrial area on Long Island. He rode the back of an LIRR train to reach the area and got the rest of the way by rooftop- hopping, web-swinging only when necessary.

  On reaching the warehouse, Spidey smashed through an upper-level window—an impressive but dangerous trick he could survive because of his durable skin, although it always required stitching up the costume afterward. He landed a few feet in front of Mason amid a shower of shattering glass. But the slim, elderly man handled it with considerable aplomb. He looked up from his worktable with curiosity, peering at the intruder over his granny glasses, but showed no surprise or fear. “Spider-Man. I’m not open for business at the current time. You’ll have to come back later.”

  In an instant, Spidey was crouching on the table and pulling Mason up by his lapels. ‘‘What do you know about the robots that have been attacking me?”

  “I know nothing about robots,” he said, still remarkably cool.

  “Don’t give me that! I’ve seen your work before. Remember when I broke your Toy?” He expected that to get a rise out of Mason. Toy had been a hulking humanlike robot who had functioned as the Tinkerer’s henchman a few years back, at a time when he’d been actively pursuing supervillainy. In a climactic confrontation, Spidey had tricked Mason into shooting his own henchdroid—whereupon the old man had broken down and wept for Toy like a fallen son. It was presumably that trauma that had caused Mason to return to his former career, merely providing equipment to other villains.

  But once again, the man showed no sign of distress. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave.”

  “I’m going nowhere until you tell me what I—whoa!” Suddenly he was flying toward the wall; Mason had yanked him forward and tossed him overhead in one lightning-quick move. Spidey flipped to land safely on the wall and sprayed a web-mesh toward the unexpectedly strong Tinkerer, suddenly finding his inhuman calm a lot more understandable.

  His target dodged the web, bending backward in a way even Spidey’s spine couldn’t manage, and shot up right again, confirming that this was not the real Phineas Mason. “Well, if it isn’t Toy Story 2!” he quipped, before reminding himself that the effort was wasted on an automaton, however human it appeared. “Where’s the real Mason?”

  “I am managing his affairs while he is away,” the faux Tinkerer replied. “That is all you need to know.”

  The robot advanced on him, reaching for his throat. He dodged and kicked it in the face—and was a bit relieved when the face didn’t fall off like in those cheesy seventies sci-fi shows. Which was more than offset by his disappointment that the whole head didn’t come off. The robot simply grabbed his leg and flung him over its shoulder again, sending him crashing into the worktable.

  But that proved a mistake on its part. A welding torch was still active on the table. Spidey grabbed it and opened its valve to full, lunging at the android. The flame cut a swath across its torso, and it retreated, bat ting out the fire that had caught on its shirt. Spidey kept after it, slashing the torch across its neck. It spun and knocked the torch clear, pressing the attack again, but it was slowed, its movements erratic. It went for Spidey’s neck again, and he let it, for he was busy jabbing his fingers in through the burned swath across the latex skin of its chest, getting a grip on its innards and ripping them free. Whatever he’d extracted must not have been vital, for its attack continued. He reached in deeper and felt around, finding taut cords that must have been artificial muscles. He pulled on them until they tore loose, and one of the robot’s arms went limp. Wriggling free of the other hand and knocking it aside, he spun the android around and struck at the back of its neck repeatedly until the damaged connections snapped. The android fell limp, its body twitching aimlessly. Creeped out, Spidey hit it over and over until it stopped.

  He had taken care to minimize damage to the head, though, on the theory that the CPU would be in there. Given the way the neck damage had shut it down, that seemed likely. Indeed, before long, he had opened up the head and found the core processor. Taking it over to Mason’s computer, he accessed its memory to see what he could learn from it.

  It took some doing, and his limited hacking skills could not uncover any information about the real Mason’s whereabouts or plans. Not that I’m surprised. Why would he build a decoy to hide his true whereabouts, then store that information in its memory? Nonetheless, he kept looking, accessing a playback of its video memory in hopes of learning something about whom it had interacted with.

  He fast-forwarded through the video files, slowing it to normal on those few instances when someone entered the workshop. Most of the visitors were delivering food, no doubt to keep up the pretense that the place was occupied by a living person. (Although it seemed that the android actually consumed the food, as far as he could tell through its eyes. Examination of the body showed a furnacelike “stomach” that it used to burn and process the food for chemical energy.) A few of the visitors were apparently clients, and Spidey recognized one or two, but they were small-timers who weren’t among his regular foes. Moreover, the android apparently turned them away, though the audio files were too damaged to retrieve.

  But then Spidey shot forward as an unmistakable face appeared on the monitor. Jameson! Again, he couldn’t tell what was being said, but the conversation clearly went beyond a mere brush-off. Jameson was in the android’s face, going back and forth with it for some minutes. ‘Why did I never learn to read lips? The publisher grew increasingly hostile over the course of the conversation, but that happened in just about all of JJJ’s conversations. The look on his face toward the end was one Peter Parker knew well from years of working for Jameson. It was a look that said that he expected something from you and wouldn’t be satisfied until it was delivered.

  “They’re in on it!” he cried. “This is it! Solid evidence, at last!” Maybe it wasn’t proof, but it was a start, something that showed an actual connection between Jameson and a skilled roboticist. True, this had only been a decoy android; but who was to say it hadn’t been this same decoy, or another like it, that Felicia had tracked? The real Mason could still be in town, working underground—perhaps letting the android handle his routine business because he was all wrapped up with a special project. Perhaps Jameson had been passing on instructions through the android, or had believed he was addressing the real Tinkerer and been chastising him for not being at his work.

  Whatever the explanation, Spider-Man seized onto this slim piece of evidence like a lifeline. It gave him something to believe in, reassured him that he’d been on the right track after all. Yes. I should never have doubted myself! I knew it was Jameson all along!

  He recalled that he still had a tracer on Jameson’s coat. Its battery should still be good for another day or two, he thought. Which means I’d better act fast. I have to find him, he went on as he leaped through the window and swung away. And this time I will get some answers.

  * * *

  THE Wake-Up Call was being sounded less often lately. Not only was Jameson busy investigating the case, but he didn’t find it as easy to write the column anymore. He was determined to stick to his guns on the blog, to maintain his anti-Spider-Man rhetoric at all costs. Sure, he had some doubts, but he couldn’t let them show; if he gave any ground, the public would lose confidence in him. Spider-Man was still out there, more aggressive than ever, to judge from the latest police reports. Whether he was involved in the robot attacks or not, his near-lethal tactics against that band of gunrunners had been inexcusable, and Jameson couldn’t soften his stance on the former without sounding like he was soft on the latter. Sure, there were some people out there who were wise and patient enough to read an ambiguous argument carefully and appreciate its subtleties, but any fool knew that the majority of the public consisted of simple-minded, knee-jerk types who wanted their answers as uncomplicated as possible, their good guys and bad guys clearly delineated. People had no patience for distinguishing between shades of gray, so you had to paint it for them in black and white. Even if that meant glossing over some of the side issues— like exactly which crimes a man was and wasn’t guilty of.

  But it wasn’t so easy to keep up that air of certainty anymore. The passion driving him to write about Spider-Man’s crimes just wasn’t there, and wouldn’t be until he found some real evidence. One way or the other, he reluctantly added.

  Indeed, there was evidence accumulating, but still nothing that pointed at the wall-crawler in any direct way. The latest evidence, in fact, was pointing in a surprising direction. It involved Stanley Richardson, a security guard who had been working for Stark Enterprises—the first high-tech firm to be hit after Electro’s arrest, specifically on a night when Richardson had been on watch at the warehouse. This break-in showed the least evidence of mechanical assistance; indeed, though Stark’s security people had been loath to admit it, Ben Urich had uncovered indications that an inside man had abetted the heist. And Richardson had disappeared shortly thereafter—until a day ago, when his body had washed up on the Staten Island shore, his skull caved in by a heavy metallic implement. This had prompted Robbie Robertson to order a more thorough investigation of the man’s past—and Urich had dug up an unexpected fact. “It seems,” Robbie reported to Jonah, “that Richardson used to work as an electric company lineman alongside one Max Dillon.”

  Jameson’s eyes widened as he looked across his desk at Robbie. “Electro?”

  “I don’t mean the marshal from Gunsmoke. Jonah, it can’t be a coincidence that a former associate of Electro’s is implicated in the same string of robot -related thefts that we know Electro had a part in—and then turns up dead from a blow that could have been inflicted by a robotic claw.”

  Jameson waved his hands as though dispersing a cloud of smoke. “Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to spell it out for me. I see where you’re going. But remember, Dillon’s in jail. He was in jail when that warehouse was robbed, and he was in jail when Richardson got cacked. He would’ve had to have an accomplice,” he said with meaning.

  Robbie caught the subtext. “You mean Spider-Man.”

  “Who else?”

  “Jonah, the robbery was in Jersey, and Spider-Man was sighted in Brooklyn within ten minutes of it. Even he can’t move that fast.”

  “You have any idea how many cranks there are dressing up in Spidey suits and trying to climb the walls?”

  “How many of them are leaping across a street in a single bound, carrying a websack on his back with two cat burglars in it?” Robbie sighed. “Jonah, you’re on the wrong track where Spider-Man is concerned. Again. But this time, I think you actually know it.”

  Jameson didn’t admit that Robbie was right, but the editor seemed satisfied nonetheless. Afterward, JJJ resumed his own investigation, contacting Ryker’s Island and requesting information on Max Dillon’s activities. After studying the files for a time, he came to a decision. It was time to pay a call on Electro.

  * * *

  SPIDEY picked up the tracer signal as he swung through Carnegie Hill. Closing in, he spotted Jameson’s limo and followed it. It led him to a police heliport, where Jameson boarded a chopper that flew out across the East River, leaving Spidey unable to follow. But he could tell where the chopper was headed: straight for Ryker’s Island. Meeting another accomplice? he wondered. Now we’re getting somewhere. I’ll give him enough webline . . . then we’ll see if he hangs himself.

  ELEVEN

  SENSELESS VIOLENCE

  “ROBOTS?” Max Dillon leaned back on his plastic -framed cot, studied Jameson through the glass wall of his insulated cell, and shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about any robots. I was just minding my business in Times Square when this green Gargantua picks a fight with me.”

  “Come on, Dillon,” Jameson snarled. “Stop playing games. You didn’t exactly try to hide your involvement with the diamond theft. You costume types always go for the limelight.” As an afterthought, he added, “And Gargantua was a man, you illiterate spark plug.”

  Dillon spread his hands. “All right, so I got some new toys, and I wanted to play with ’em. But your boyfriend Spider-Man and his pals broke them all, and that’s the end of the story, far as I’m concerned. I’ve been sittin’ in here ever since, remember? Just like I told the wall -crawler when he dropped by a few days ago.”

  Jameson shot forward. “Spider-Man broke into prison? And out again?” Come to think of it, he only had a problem with the latter. ‘‘What did he want to see you about?”

  “Same thing as you. Wanted to know who’s buildin’ robots. What do I know about buildin’ robots? I just ste—uhh, borrow them.”