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fardell24SpiderGirl looked out over the town from the top of the theater as she usually did. ‘Something feels off,’ she thought. ‘It’s not like the usual feeling when looking over the town,’ she thought. She waited and went towards the door downwards. She was about to change to the ordinary Quinn when her Spider Sense tingled. ‘Uh oh!’ she thought as she looked around. She saw someone jump between two nearby buildings from rooftop to rooftop. She decided to lead swing down the opposite side of the building.
SpiderGirl entered the Historia via one of the side doors and went towards the apartments to change to ordinary Quinn there. ‘I may need a base here, like at home.’
Danielson stopped on the roof of the Historia. SpiderGirl had vanished. ‘She must have seen me,’ he thought. ‘But that means that she knows the other vigilantes by sight and knew I wasn’t one of them.’ He looked around at the town before deciding to head down.
Quinn entered the café, although it was still another half hour before her shift started. She saw that Stacy was already there.
“Quinn? Are you OK?” Stacy asked as she came into the servery area.
“Oh, just thinking about last week.”
“You mean, what happened with Lynn Anders, or the robodactyl?”
“Both,” Quinn admitted, as a distraction from the near encounter she had just had.
Danielson entered the Historia through the main entrance. “This is the teen run theater I heard about,” he murmured. ‘She could be anywhere here, and could slip out while I am looking. So where first? Bookstore, theater or café?’ He went to the café first.
Elisabeth Rowe saw Quinn writing when she re-entered the office. “You don’t usually do homework here,” she said.
“True, but I’m pondering what has been happening in Lawndale.”
“What happened last night? WLND still isn’t saying much.”
“That’s part of it,” Quinn admitted.
“I know you go up on the roof often.”
“I look at the town and think.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Elizabeth said. “You have been taking a lot on, especially over the past month.”
“Not much,” Quinn said.
“You can tell me, if you want.”
Quinn thought about it. ‘Sorry, Mrs. Rowe, I don’t want to take the risk of revealing that I’m SpiderGirl. I’ll talk to Brit later.’
Danielson ordered. “…I’m new here in Lawndale. What could you tell me of SpiderGirl?” he asked the teen barista with braided pigtails, who seemed a little nervous.
“Um. That she’s actually fighting crime, and she does rescue people,” the barista answered.
“I see, but that doesn’t actually tell me any more than what’s in the media.”
Quinn heard Stacy talking to the customer. ‘That doesn’t happen often,’ she thought. But something else was off.
“You could go to the Library,” Stacy suggested. “That’s what a friend has been doing when she investigates.”
“I’ll think about that,” the man said as he took his coffee.
‘Why do I get the feeling that he’s working for Oscorp?’ Stacy wondered, as she watched him leaving the café.
Danielson looked through the bookstore and in the theater space before leaving the Historia.
“I heard someone was asking about SpiderGirl,” Quinn said to Stacy as she started her shift.
“Very strange,” Stacy said. “He wasn’t the usual tourist who was passing through Lawndale, having heard about recent events.”
“I think there’s more.”
Stacy dropped her voice. “You think he’s working for Oscorp?”
“Most likely,” Quinn answered. “I’d tell Daria when you get the chance.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
After dinner, Sandi was ready to search again. But she paused as she grabbed the energy drink. ‘Would it be better to see what Curt Conners is up to, or maybe I’ll leave that to Mother.’ She looked in the yearbook again and put Curt Conners out of her mind. After Lena Haroldson was Tamiko Hirakawa, who had moved to Lawndale from the West Coast in Middle school. She downed the energy drink. “Findu mann hem heiter: Tamiko Hirakawa!”
She found Tamiko at the Historia, where Quinn was delivering her meal.
“Quinn, right,” Sandi said with annoyance. She looked at the yearbook again. It would be nearly two weeks before she would get to Quinn, if she didn’t have to search for others in the meantime. ‘I might still search for Conners first,’ she thought as she put the yearbook away.
Quinn felt the tingle as she delivered the meal to Tamiko. “Here you go,” she said.
“Thanks, Quinn,” Tamiko said.
“You’re welcome.”
“You think, Lawndale will calm down? My parents moved here because it was quiet.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Quinn answered. “You think they will want to move, with everything that’s happening?”
“They have been talking about it occasionally since Groundhog Day.”
Later, Quinn reflected as she emerged onto the roof after her shift. She quickly looked around but didn’t see anyone. ‘I might be able to swing, but Brit could keep up with me when she first started being Talon, and so could the Shadow. I haven’t had such a run in with Dafoanairi yet, but she too might be able to keep up.’ She didn’t want potential Oscorp agents chasing her across Lawndale every evening or night! She then heard something in the direction of Lawndale Flats. ‘Responsibility calls anyway!’ she thought before changing to SpiderGirl and swinging away.
She swung quicker than usual, having ran off the Historia’s roof while leaping and continuing to run along the available roofs before swinging across the Creek via various trees on the creek flat. ‘I don’t think they would be in Lawndale Flats,’ she thought as she arrived on the opposite side.
After rescuing preventing a break-in at an apartment block, SpiderGirl hung around Lawndale Flats for half an hour before heading back across the Creek and towards Glen Oaks Lane.
She entered the basement through the backyard hatch and went into her hidden room before unmasking. She took out a tape recorder. “March 7th, 10:09 PM. Oscorp might have hired agents to chase me over the rooftops…”
After midnight, Sandi arrived at the Morgendorffers to find Daria writing in a notebook on the roof above her room. “Listening to the town?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Daria admitted. “But I just hear the murmur of a town at rest, even when I know that’s just the surface.”
“You’re concerned about Osborn, aren’t you?”
“It seems that he has many plans in motion, not just one.”
“I thought so too,” Sandi said as she looked at some of the visible stars.
“Could you tell me more about last night?”
“Not much, and I couldn’t get an opportunity to talk to Mother about her contacts.”
“Then we’ll have to do the legwork as usual,” Daria said as she stood up. “I’ll go down first and change.”
Sandi nodded.
Dafoanairi and the Enigma soon left the Morgendorffers in the direction of the Giant Strawberry. The former thought it would be a good idea to look over the town to see if they could see anything that would be out of place.
“I’m thinking you need a different way out of your room,” the Enigma said they started along the laneway.
“I have thought about it,” Dafoanairi admitted. “There have been times Quinn has almost caught me like this. I could put a hatch from my closet into the attic, but I’ll have to examine the area first.”
“That’s a good idea. At least my window is more hidden.”
“The next door neighbors haven’t noticed, and there are plenty of trees.”
“Not surprising that it’s just Quinn,” the Enigma said. “She always noticed things first.”
“Which is one reason why she’s been helpful at this time.”
At the Strawberry, they looked over the town through the telescopes.
“We can only see some of the town, though,” Dafoanairi said after fifteen minutes.
“That’s true. But maybe we can spot something.”
“It may not be as obvious as the Goblin’s glider.”
“But if Harry is right…” The Enigma began.
Dafoanairi pointed her telescope in the direction the Enigma was pointing hers. She saw someone jumping from rooftop to rooftop on the edge of the downtown. “Doesn’t look familiar,” she said. “They’re not masked.”
“Certainly not one of the other three. They look male for one.”
“That is one thing I have been wondering about.”
“Another time, we need to get there,” the Enigma said.
“Even if we take a car, he would be gone by the time we get there.”
“Good point, but now we know that something additional is up.”
“But whether it’s Oscorp related is an open question,” Dafoanairi said.
They spent another half hour looking, before heading off on their usual patrols for Wednesday night.
After arriving at the spot below the bridge, Brittany saw that Quinn wanted to talk about something. “What happened?” she asked.
“I think he was an Oscorp agent. Like he was following me along the rooftops, and later asked Stacy about me,” Quinn answered.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Brittany responded. “If Osborn is using agents to follow us.”
“Like I could web them up, but I don’t know how many there would be. Stacy was her usual self…”
“And you think Stacy wouldn’t be able to handle it? She’s stronger than you think.”
“I know she’s strong, but you know how she gets,” Quinn said.
Brittany nodded. She had known Stacy in passing for years. She gave Quinn a slight hug of reassurance.
“Thanks.”
They stayed there and watched the sun come up, until Quinn yawned. “All the worry is tiring.”
“We’ll get through this,” Brittany said in a reassuring tone.
Quinn nodded with a small smile. She then heard sirens in the distance. “I’ll see you at school,” she said as she pulled her mask back on. “Responsibility calls.”
“Go get ‘em, Spidey!”
Lawndale Sun-Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2001
Fields arrived at work early, as she knew Osborn would want her to look into things. And sure enough…
“Fields!” Osborn said as she entered the office.
“Mr. Osborn.”
“I want you to look over the quickest routes through town.”
“Which routes. The streets, or laneways?” Fields asked. ‘Probably the stormwater system too, if he did help Beck.’ But those rumors were still unsubstantiated.
“Both,” Osborn answered. “As well as how close the buildings are to each other in the suburban subdivisions.”
“You’re trying to figure out how the vigilantes are moving around.”
“Exactly. It’s not only SpiderGirl who’s moving over rooftops.”
‘As I suspected,’ Fields thought. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Good.”
Fields turned to start her research. ‘Maybe I can use the information myself.’
Quinn met Ted in the Lowdown office at lunchtime. She gave him a proposal that she had written in the middle of the night.
Ted looked at it. “You want us to investigate the SpiderGirl inspired clothes?”
“Given that they are of a poor quality and were possibly made in a sweatshop.”
“It’s a good idea.”
“But?” Quinn asked, although she knew what Ted was going to say.
“I’m not sure that Ms. Li would go for that.”
“I’ll come up with a reason.”
Ted raised an eyebrow. “It would have to be good.”
“I’ll think of something.”
In the cafeteria, Daria and most of the other students she had been investigating the events in Lawndale with sat at the usual table.
“What’s this about Alchemax?” Jane asked. “WLND says that something happened there two nights ago, but Alchemax isn’t saying anything.”
“Rumors,” Daria said. “Mostly. But I know what the fourth vigilante told me.” She glanced quickly at Sandi, who gave a barely perceptible nod, before glancing at Tania who was sitting on the other side of her.
“And that was?” Jane asked.
“That they were after a serum that regenerates damaged tissue, more specifically, that of amputated limbs.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “That seems far-fetched, even with what I have seen SpiderGirl do.”
“That’s what she said,” Sandi said quietly.
“Oh, you believe it, do you?” Jane asked.
“I see no reason why not,” Sandi said defensively.
“I also believe it, Jane,” Daria said.
“So, Oscorp believed it enough to want to steal it,” Jane said, trying to not get into an argument with Sandi.
“Exactly,” Daria said. “But it is what they might want it for that may be disturbing.”
“Creating monsters?” Tania asked. “I can believe that after Groundhog Day.”
“And if they get loose?” Daria asked rhetorically. “We saw what happened last week when the Hospital got locked down…”
“But the news of that was drowned out by the Robodactyl and the interview,” Tania said.
SpiderGirl entered the Historia via one of the side doors and went towards the apartments to change to ordinary Quinn there. ‘I may need a base here, like at home.’
Danielson stopped on the roof of the Historia. SpiderGirl had vanished. ‘She must have seen me,’ he thought. ‘But that means that she knows the other vigilantes by sight and knew I wasn’t one of them.’ He looked around at the town before deciding to head down.
Quinn entered the café, although it was still another half hour before her shift started. She saw that Stacy was already there.
“Quinn? Are you OK?” Stacy asked as she came into the servery area.
“Oh, just thinking about last week.”
“You mean, what happened with Lynn Anders, or the robodactyl?”
“Both,” Quinn admitted, as a distraction from the near encounter she had just had.
Danielson entered the Historia through the main entrance. “This is the teen run theater I heard about,” he murmured. ‘She could be anywhere here, and could slip out while I am looking. So where first? Bookstore, theater or café?’ He went to the café first.
Elisabeth Rowe saw Quinn writing when she re-entered the office. “You don’t usually do homework here,” she said.
“True, but I’m pondering what has been happening in Lawndale.”
“What happened last night? WLND still isn’t saying much.”
“That’s part of it,” Quinn admitted.
“I know you go up on the roof often.”
“I look at the town and think.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Elizabeth said. “You have been taking a lot on, especially over the past month.”
“Not much,” Quinn said.
“You can tell me, if you want.”
Quinn thought about it. ‘Sorry, Mrs. Rowe, I don’t want to take the risk of revealing that I’m SpiderGirl. I’ll talk to Brit later.’
Danielson ordered. “…I’m new here in Lawndale. What could you tell me of SpiderGirl?” he asked the teen barista with braided pigtails, who seemed a little nervous.
“Um. That she’s actually fighting crime, and she does rescue people,” the barista answered.
“I see, but that doesn’t actually tell me any more than what’s in the media.”
Quinn heard Stacy talking to the customer. ‘That doesn’t happen often,’ she thought. But something else was off.
“You could go to the Library,” Stacy suggested. “That’s what a friend has been doing when she investigates.”
“I’ll think about that,” the man said as he took his coffee.
‘Why do I get the feeling that he’s working for Oscorp?’ Stacy wondered, as she watched him leaving the café.
Danielson looked through the bookstore and in the theater space before leaving the Historia.
“I heard someone was asking about SpiderGirl,” Quinn said to Stacy as she started her shift.
“Very strange,” Stacy said. “He wasn’t the usual tourist who was passing through Lawndale, having heard about recent events.”
“I think there’s more.”
Stacy dropped her voice. “You think he’s working for Oscorp?”
“Most likely,” Quinn answered. “I’d tell Daria when you get the chance.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
After dinner, Sandi was ready to search again. But she paused as she grabbed the energy drink. ‘Would it be better to see what Curt Conners is up to, or maybe I’ll leave that to Mother.’ She looked in the yearbook again and put Curt Conners out of her mind. After Lena Haroldson was Tamiko Hirakawa, who had moved to Lawndale from the West Coast in Middle school. She downed the energy drink. “Findu mann hem heiter: Tamiko Hirakawa!”
She found Tamiko at the Historia, where Quinn was delivering her meal.
“Quinn, right,” Sandi said with annoyance. She looked at the yearbook again. It would be nearly two weeks before she would get to Quinn, if she didn’t have to search for others in the meantime. ‘I might still search for Conners first,’ she thought as she put the yearbook away.
Quinn felt the tingle as she delivered the meal to Tamiko. “Here you go,” she said.
“Thanks, Quinn,” Tamiko said.
“You’re welcome.”
“You think, Lawndale will calm down? My parents moved here because it was quiet.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Quinn answered. “You think they will want to move, with everything that’s happening?”
“They have been talking about it occasionally since Groundhog Day.”
Later, Quinn reflected as she emerged onto the roof after her shift. She quickly looked around but didn’t see anyone. ‘I might be able to swing, but Brit could keep up with me when she first started being Talon, and so could the Shadow. I haven’t had such a run in with Dafoanairi yet, but she too might be able to keep up.’ She didn’t want potential Oscorp agents chasing her across Lawndale every evening or night! She then heard something in the direction of Lawndale Flats. ‘Responsibility calls anyway!’ she thought before changing to SpiderGirl and swinging away.
She swung quicker than usual, having ran off the Historia’s roof while leaping and continuing to run along the available roofs before swinging across the Creek via various trees on the creek flat. ‘I don’t think they would be in Lawndale Flats,’ she thought as she arrived on the opposite side.
After rescuing preventing a break-in at an apartment block, SpiderGirl hung around Lawndale Flats for half an hour before heading back across the Creek and towards Glen Oaks Lane.
She entered the basement through the backyard hatch and went into her hidden room before unmasking. She took out a tape recorder. “March 7th, 10:09 PM. Oscorp might have hired agents to chase me over the rooftops…”
After midnight, Sandi arrived at the Morgendorffers to find Daria writing in a notebook on the roof above her room. “Listening to the town?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Daria admitted. “But I just hear the murmur of a town at rest, even when I know that’s just the surface.”
“You’re concerned about Osborn, aren’t you?”
“It seems that he has many plans in motion, not just one.”
“I thought so too,” Sandi said as she looked at some of the visible stars.
“Could you tell me more about last night?”
“Not much, and I couldn’t get an opportunity to talk to Mother about her contacts.”
“Then we’ll have to do the legwork as usual,” Daria said as she stood up. “I’ll go down first and change.”
Sandi nodded.
Dafoanairi and the Enigma soon left the Morgendorffers in the direction of the Giant Strawberry. The former thought it would be a good idea to look over the town to see if they could see anything that would be out of place.
“I’m thinking you need a different way out of your room,” the Enigma said they started along the laneway.
“I have thought about it,” Dafoanairi admitted. “There have been times Quinn has almost caught me like this. I could put a hatch from my closet into the attic, but I’ll have to examine the area first.”
“That’s a good idea. At least my window is more hidden.”
“The next door neighbors haven’t noticed, and there are plenty of trees.”
“Not surprising that it’s just Quinn,” the Enigma said. “She always noticed things first.”
“Which is one reason why she’s been helpful at this time.”
At the Strawberry, they looked over the town through the telescopes.
“We can only see some of the town, though,” Dafoanairi said after fifteen minutes.
“That’s true. But maybe we can spot something.”
“It may not be as obvious as the Goblin’s glider.”
“But if Harry is right…” The Enigma began.
Dafoanairi pointed her telescope in the direction the Enigma was pointing hers. She saw someone jumping from rooftop to rooftop on the edge of the downtown. “Doesn’t look familiar,” she said. “They’re not masked.”
“Certainly not one of the other three. They look male for one.”
“That is one thing I have been wondering about.”
“Another time, we need to get there,” the Enigma said.
“Even if we take a car, he would be gone by the time we get there.”
“Good point, but now we know that something additional is up.”
“But whether it’s Oscorp related is an open question,” Dafoanairi said.
They spent another half hour looking, before heading off on their usual patrols for Wednesday night.
After arriving at the spot below the bridge, Brittany saw that Quinn wanted to talk about something. “What happened?” she asked.
“I think he was an Oscorp agent. Like he was following me along the rooftops, and later asked Stacy about me,” Quinn answered.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Brittany responded. “If Osborn is using agents to follow us.”
“Like I could web them up, but I don’t know how many there would be. Stacy was her usual self…”
“And you think Stacy wouldn’t be able to handle it? She’s stronger than you think.”
“I know she’s strong, but you know how she gets,” Quinn said.
Brittany nodded. She had known Stacy in passing for years. She gave Quinn a slight hug of reassurance.
“Thanks.”
They stayed there and watched the sun come up, until Quinn yawned. “All the worry is tiring.”
“We’ll get through this,” Brittany said in a reassuring tone.
Quinn nodded with a small smile. She then heard sirens in the distance. “I’ll see you at school,” she said as she pulled her mask back on. “Responsibility calls.”
“Go get ‘em, Spidey!”
Lawndale Sun-Herald
Thursday, March 8, 2001
Fields arrived at work early, as she knew Osborn would want her to look into things. And sure enough…
“Fields!” Osborn said as she entered the office.
“Mr. Osborn.”
“I want you to look over the quickest routes through town.”
“Which routes. The streets, or laneways?” Fields asked. ‘Probably the stormwater system too, if he did help Beck.’ But those rumors were still unsubstantiated.
“Both,” Osborn answered. “As well as how close the buildings are to each other in the suburban subdivisions.”
“You’re trying to figure out how the vigilantes are moving around.”
“Exactly. It’s not only SpiderGirl who’s moving over rooftops.”
‘As I suspected,’ Fields thought. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Good.”
Fields turned to start her research. ‘Maybe I can use the information myself.’
Quinn met Ted in the Lowdown office at lunchtime. She gave him a proposal that she had written in the middle of the night.
Ted looked at it. “You want us to investigate the SpiderGirl inspired clothes?”
“Given that they are of a poor quality and were possibly made in a sweatshop.”
“It’s a good idea.”
“But?” Quinn asked, although she knew what Ted was going to say.
“I’m not sure that Ms. Li would go for that.”
“I’ll come up with a reason.”
Ted raised an eyebrow. “It would have to be good.”
“I’ll think of something.”
In the cafeteria, Daria and most of the other students she had been investigating the events in Lawndale with sat at the usual table.
“What’s this about Alchemax?” Jane asked. “WLND says that something happened there two nights ago, but Alchemax isn’t saying anything.”
“Rumors,” Daria said. “Mostly. But I know what the fourth vigilante told me.” She glanced quickly at Sandi, who gave a barely perceptible nod, before glancing at Tania who was sitting on the other side of her.
“And that was?” Jane asked.
“That they were after a serum that regenerates damaged tissue, more specifically, that of amputated limbs.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “That seems far-fetched, even with what I have seen SpiderGirl do.”
“That’s what she said,” Sandi said quietly.
“Oh, you believe it, do you?” Jane asked.
“I see no reason why not,” Sandi said defensively.
“I also believe it, Jane,” Daria said.
“So, Oscorp believed it enough to want to steal it,” Jane said, trying to not get into an argument with Sandi.
“Exactly,” Daria said. “But it is what they might want it for that may be disturbing.”
“Creating monsters?” Tania asked. “I can believe that after Groundhog Day.”
“And if they get loose?” Daria asked rhetorically. “We saw what happened last week when the Hospital got locked down…”
“But the news of that was drowned out by the Robodactyl and the interview,” Tania said.
