Boy Falls From the Sky 1/3

[lc2l]

Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Eduardo/Mark with canon compliant amounts of Eduardo/Christy and plenty of Eduardo/badassery on the side.
Rating: PG-13 (comic book levels of violence)
Length: 32,000 words
Summary: In which Divya Narendra is an evil mastermind, Sean Parker seems like a supervillain and Eduardo can't go to Palo Alto because he's too busy in New York being Spiderman.
Notes: ALL OF THE THANKS to altogetherisi who prompted it when I had no ideas, didn't complain when I completely failed to stick to the plan and betaed the whole mess into something readable (:
Also Elipie and insteadofdeath for the most amazing art.

Trailer by Elipie

Cover by insteadofdeath

Fic in full at AO3


Then

He should've known the moment he saw the spider. Red and electric blue with a bite that stung like crazy while Eduardo gritted his teeth and stumbled over Daniel Chester's name.

He should've known when it took supreme force to crush it and when he was compelled to scoop it up afterwards - barely broken - and transfer it to a jam jar.

He really should have known when two days later he had gained abs and the spider was crawling around in its jar none the worse for wear.

"And you found this in November?" Dr Jones asked, holding the jar up to the light.

The spider hissed and attacked the jar as though it could break through this one too. Eduardo really should have known. "That's right. My doctor told me to show it to you." He hesitated long enough for it to become clear that further explanation was expected. "I've been busy."

Dr Jones gave him a moment longer, in case he had anything else to add. What was Eduardo supposed to say? I had work for class? I had to go home over Christmas or my father might disown me? My best friend is building a website that could be worth a whole lot some day but right now he really needs someone sitting behind him with red bull and the occasional reminder to sleep?

Even in his head it sounded ridiculous. Thefacebook was just another dotcom project that would fade into obscurity the moment they made a mistake.

"I'll have to do some tests, of course," Dr Jones said and apparently he'd been talking the whole time. Hopefully about nothing important. "Are you sure you're the only one who's had contact with it?"

"Yes." Mark would never go to Eduardo's room even before he had thefacebook to fill his entire life. He probably didn't even know where Eduardo lived.

"And you just picked it up? It didn't bite you?"

Eduardo hesitated. On the one hand an unknown species of bright blue spider had left a bite on his leg that swelled to the size of a golf ball before it healed. On the other hand it was healed now and he really had better things to do that hang around in a lab for tests. He had to meet Mark and thefacebook could go live any minute because Mark would never stick to a schedule or tell anyone about these things. "What would happen if it had?"

Jones scratches his head. "Tests, obviously. You'd have to go into quarantine for a month or so, at least until we know more. Obviously we'd need your consent for any invasive tests but if you show me the bite we can start now."

"I wasn't," Eduardo lied. "I wasn't bitten. I was just asking, really." He grabbed his bag off the floor. "I'm late for a business meeting but let me know what you find, okay?"

He was CFO of a company now. He had responsibilities and thus far the most notable side effect of his magic spider bite was the ability to do a perfect back flip. Not exactly the stuff apocalypses were made of.

"Mr Saverin?"

He'd almost made it to the door, but if he didn't stop it would be suspicious so he turned slowly on the spot to face the biologist, still clutching the spider jar in both hands.

"If it didn't bite you, why did you go to a doctor?"

Eduardo cast around for anything. Anything at all. "Worms. I had worms. And the doctor and I, we just got talking."

"Worms," Jones echoed, disbelief pushed into every drawn out letter.

"You should put him in something else," Eduardo said. "If he wants to get out, the glass won't stop him."

While Jones panicked, throwing he jar away from himself and searching for a suitable container, Eduardo scarpered.

Now

Mark is chained to the ceiling, three robots pointing advanced weaponry at his head. Eduardo is just about patient enough to stand still while the villainous plan is explained before he destroys all three robots by throwing them into the walls and trusses up the controller in a web about a meter from where Mark is chained up.

Eduardo considers leaving him up there. Unfortunately, that isn't a very Spiderman thing to do.

"That was... kind of amazing," Mark says. Slowly, Eduardo supposes, because the idea of anyone other than him doing something amazing is alien to Mark.

This is usually where Spiderman would give some useful advice and then take the victim home. "Get the fuck out of here," Eduardo says.

So sometimes Spiderman has off days. It's not like Mark can't afford the cab.

Anyway, Eduardo has a deposition to attend in the morning.

Then

Mark wasn't in when Eduardo arrived at his door after running all the way from the train station. Of course, Mark wouldn't know prompt if it bit him in the ass but three hours late was possibly pushing it a little.

If the long sprint across the whole of campus had actually exhausted Eduardo he might've been more pissed off, but as it was he noticed it about as much as the walk from his dorm.

He rubbed his ankle with one hand. Jones thought it was serious - serious enough for quarantine - and he spent a lot of time with Mark. Enough time that if it was contagious Mark might catch it.

So he'd just explain. About the spider, about his doctor saying he should see a professional and the professional noting that the bite was fading but recommending he talk to a biologist. About Dr Jones and his ideas about quarantine.

Mark was out of breath when he arrived, his feet soaked; he had clearly just run across campus.

Mark would probably love spider powers. Eduardo had certainly found himself needing to sleep less, though if Mark slept less he would just be not sleeping at all.

Mark brushed past him and it took all of Eduardo's reflexes to catch the door before it slammed shut. There were shadows under his eyes and it looked like he hadn't slept since Eduardo was last here-forcibly taking the headphones off his head and holding his thumb over the computer's power button until Mark took a nap.

He was already at the computer by the time Eduardo made it into the room. The homepage was up on the screen, alongside the stream of white-on-black text that was as incomprehensible to Eduardo as Portuguese was to Mark.

It looked good. More than that, in an era of glitter text and headache-inducing colour it was clean, simple, the kind of website people didn't even realise they were looking for. "What did you write?" Eduardo asked, as Mark finished the new stream of code.

If asked, Eduardo could have scrolled through thefacebook coding and located the exact section that controlled relationship status. He still didn't know how to change his own.

"And that was it," Mark said, hands off the keyboard for the first time in weeks.

For a moment, Eduardo's mind continued winding down the trail of how 'relationship status' would redefine the site, the uses of the site. Then his ears caught up with his brain. "What do you mean?"

"It's ready."

Eduardo's mind stuttered to a complete halt, staring at the culmination of all that work and thinking 'It's ready' as though that could make it any more real.

Eduardo Saverin, the masthead read. Co-founder and CFO.

Spider powers had nothing, nothing on this.

Now

Spiderman has made the papers in the morning. 'Masked Menace Terrorises City: The Spider-Man Strikes Again.' It would probably be 'unheroic' to sneak into the news office and break the editor's nose for libel. It would definitely be overkill to do the same because they spelt his name wrong.

What kind of idiot hyphenates their superhero name?

"Would you mind addressing him as Mr Saverin?" asks Gretchen-the one decent lawyer in this city who doesn't bat an eyelid at her client missing meetings, ducking out in the middle of the depositions and occasionally sticking to the furniture.

"Gretchen, they're best friends."

"Not anymore."

The mobile in Eduardo's pocket vibrates and he has to drop his hand down to slide it out. There's a fire in an apartment building, half an hour's walk and ten minutes swing away.

The second text gives a more detailed address.

The third says there's a child inside.

"Mr Saverin, what happened after the initial launch?"

Eduardo kicks his chair back, reaching into his pocket for the mask and already planning a route to the roof, a closet on the way where he can change. "It exploded."

Gretchen pulls her files closer as Eduardo brushes past. "Let's take a break there."

There are red marks on Mark's wrists and bags under his eyes from where he clearly didn't sleep. Eduardo doesn't care.

He has people to save.

Then

The first person Eduardo saved was Bill Gates. He never exactly believed in starting small. He was supposed to be waiting for Mark around the front of the building where Gates was speaking, but the place had a particularly dark back alley with no windows opening onto it-the kind of secluded location that Eduardo had been looking for since the moment a week prior that his hand had stuck to his bedroom door.

He could climb walls. He could place his hands against the bricks and they stuck allowing him to climb walls and when he finally found a moment to speak to Mark properly, Mark would not believe how cool this was.

He climbed level with the first boarded up window then pushed himself back, off the wall and into a perfect back flip where he landed on his feet.

That was when he heard shouting from further down the alley, in the shadows where he couldn't quite see.

"Give us the bag."

"This computer is one of a kind, made specifically for me. You wouldn't even be able to run it. Do you want money? I can give you money. How much? Just let me write you a cheque. I'll make it blank, you can put any number you like in."

Eduardo reached back to pull the collar of his jacket up and placed his hands back against the wall, climbing up as high as he dared-if his magic hands failed, he didn't want to fall to his death-and creeping slowly sideways to get closer to the shouting.

"Give us the bag!"

Eduardo couldn't see the victim clearly, but the muggers were visible enough in black balaclavas, holding guns up at their target's head.

"Please," the man said. "Please, I swear you don't want-"

A gunshot rang out and Eduardo's world slowed to a crawl. He could see the bullet twisting up towards him, smell gunpowder on the air, his eyesight had sharpened enough that he could count the freckles on the shooter's nose and his movements sharpened enough for him to flip backwards. The bullet missed Eduardo's foot by inches as his feet swung up leaving him clinging crablike, front out on the wall.

"Next one goes through your head," Freckles shouted, waving the gun through the air.

His partner was sharper, beady eyes staring up at where the bullet had gone, squinting through the shadows. "Did you see something?"

"Do you have any idea who I am?" the victim asked.

"Someone's here," said Beady Eyes, moving his gun away from the victim and somehow contriving to point it directly at Eduardo's head. "Give us the bag, hurry."

"My name is Bill Gates, I have more money than you can dream of and you can have however much you like as long as you leave my computer alone."

"Shoot him."

Freckles leered, aimed and fired.

Eduardo was already moving, his fingers detaching from the wall so he could drop faster than a stone, faster than should have been possible, knocking Bill Gates to the ground as the bullet flew over his head and into the wall. Eduardo twisted as he landed, hands splaying out and feet scrabbling for purchase so he could catch his own weight, balanced over Bill Gates like a bridge.

The computer slid out across the alley but Freckles and Eyes were too busy staring at Eduardo with their mouths hanging open to notice. Eyes was faster to acknowledge the situation, shifting his aim from the shadows to Eduardo's head. "Where the fuck did you spring from?"

Bill Gates was shaking, but still very much alive. Eduardo pushed himself slowly to his feet, watching Eyes' gun move as he moved, tracking Eduardo's head with the barrel. "Put your hands up."

"He was on the wall," Freckles said, still in shock. "He was on the wall, Ernie."

Eyes slammed a fist into Freckles' stomach. "You, shut the fuck up. You-on the wall, were you? Like a spider? Like a fucking spider man? Get your hands where I can see them."

Eduardo raised his hands above his head, reaching out with one foot to snag the strap of the computer. (He probably shouldn't be valuing a computer over his own life, but Bill Gates had the same look in his eyes when he spoke about it that Mark did whenever he talked about TheFacebook.)

"We have to shoot you both now," Ernie explained, reaching up with his non-gun hand to pull the balaclava off. He had cropped dark hair and a mole in the middle of his forehead. He looked far more threatening this way. "Can't risk you running off knowing my name. Now, I've got things to do and people to see so if you have any last words, you might want to say them now."

Eduardo caught the strap on his toes and silently prayed that Bill Gates had built an indestructible laptop. He swung his foot, the bag whipping around and catching Ernie's legs, sending him sprawling and the gun firing harmlessly up into the sky. Eduardo didn't hesitate, closing both hands around the gun to keep it pointing up and driving his knee up into Ernie's crotch.

No one ever said he had to fight fair. Ernie released the gun, crumpling to the floor as Freckles finally got his act together enough to aim. Eduardo pushed himself off the ground, the bullet going harmlessly under his feet, and lashed out with one foot, catching the man hard enough on the side of the head to send him down.

Eduardo landed in a roll, snatching the second gun off the floor and finishing on his feet, both weapons up and aimed at the two men's heads. "What's that you were saying?" He placed his foot on the laptop back and kicked it backwards for Gates to catch. "Call the police."

Gates scrambled in his bag for a phone. "What was that? Who are you?"

Eduardo looked down at Ernie's face, caught in a vicious hatred that could cut steel. Spiderman.

"No one," Eduardo said, kicking the man hard enough to break his nose. "No one at all."

They were both late for the conference.

Now

Eduardo comes back smelling of smoke, the sole of his left boot sticking with every step where it melted on a particularly hot surface. He's going to have to pick up another packet of shoe soles on the way home which means finding a new shop because the cashier in the old one has started giving him strange looks each time he goes in.

He's also going to have to wash the whole damn costume if he wants to get the smell out and knowing him he'll shrink this one too and then it'll ride up in the crotch enough to be painful for the next three weeks until his few tiny moments of free time combine into long enough for him to make a new one.

He has a collection of red and blue wetsuits in his wardrobe, but adding all the Spiderman details takes time. The more time he takes making suits, the less time he has on the streets and the more people die because he wasn't there.

His clothes are still folded in the closet where he left them. He tugs them on over his uniform, checks his hair in a metal bucket and pushes the mask down into his pocket.

Mark's eyes flick to him briefly when he enters the room, then drop back to his very important scribbles.

"Thanks for taking time out of you busy schedule to return," Mark's lawyer says coldly. "Might we could resume?"

Gretchen pulls out Eduardo's chair and when he sits down her finger rubs against the underside of his ear and comes away with soot on it.

Whatever he's paying her, he should probably double it. "Of course," he says. "Where were we?"

The note-taker looks up. "'It exploded.'"

Then

Eduardo trusted Mark. He did, that was always the thing. Dustin and Chris mocked him about it because he didn't trust anyone else-first and foremost Eduardo had always been a businessman, he expected people to try and screw him over and usually they didn't disappoint-but apparently he'd managed to attach himself to, in their minds, the least trustworthy soul on the planet.

They were wrong about that. You could trust Mark as long as you both wanted the same thing.

"We need to monetize the site," Eduardo said. They both wanted TheFacebook to do well, they both wanted it to be a business.

"How do you want to do it?"

Eduardo hesitated because Mark didn't look convinced and Eduardo wasn't sure how this was going to work if they weren't on the same page. "Advertising," he said simply. The site was clean, there was a surfeit of space. They had enough users to get interest, enough to generate sufficient revenue.

"No," Mark said. No reasoning, no arguments, just a straightforward no.

Eduardo tried to argue without saying 'at the moment I am paying for your party,' because that would just be a dick move and it wasn't like he didn't have the money. He was Mark's friend and he trusted that in the end Mark would do what was right for TheFacebook, if nothing else.

He tried not to think about what would happen if what was right for TheFacebook wasn't what was right for Eduardo. He was Mark's only friend, Mark's best friend. He put one of the beers he was holding on the mantelpiece, planning to change the conversation to mention the whole Spiderman thing.

He'd almost decided not to tell Mark, but now he could climb walls and he had saved the life of Bill Gates. That was definitely classed as cool and he intended to brag about forever the moment Mark knew everything.

But hen his eyes fell on the letter he had just put the bottle on top of and he froze. A cease and desist letter. They stole TheFacebook. Mark copied the whole thing from HarvardConnection and now he had a cease and desist letter and he hadn't told Eduardo. "What is this?"

Eduardo told himself that he shouldn't have been surprised that Mark didn't tell him. Mark was never a particularly open person, he didn't say anything that he didn't think needed to be said. If he believed he was right-if he believed not touching their code was enough-he wouldn't say anything because he wouldn't imagine it would concern anyone but him.

Intellectual property theft is hard to define, harder to prosecute and hardest to defend against particularly when there was no denying that Mark knew about the Winklevii's idea.

"The letter says we could face legal action."

Mark reached to take it. "No, it says I could face legal action," he said-proving once against that he didn't quite understand how this worked. Eduardo funded it, put his support behind Mark 100%, his name was on the masthead and if his father found out that the whole thing was stolen-

"I didn't use any of their code," Mark said, firm and solid in his convictions because he understood computers, code and absolutes. He didn't understand people, and how they wouldn't care about the truth except to work out how far they could spin it.

Eduardo closed his eyes for a moment then spoke slowly, trying to make Mark understand that this couldn't be all about him anymore. TheFacebook was bigger than that, bigger even than the two of them. "Now, is there anything you want to tell me?"

It all came down to the decision about whether or not he trusted Mark, and Eduardo had always known that when that happened he would end up on the side of trust.

Maybe Mark deserved it, maybe he didn't.

"No," Mark said, and Eduardo let himself believe it.

Now

"Are you actually going out looking for trouble?" Eduardo demands, driving his elbows backwards into the solar plexuses of the two men coming up behind him.

Mark shrugs his shoulders as best as he can while he's roped to a chair. "I was just walking home."

Eduardo takes out two men with a jump spinning kick and the last with a side kick to the ribs-they crack and the man whimpers before dropping to the ground with his comrades. Eduardo puts his foot down and winces unexpectedly. The sole of his foot is burning like a bruise and-fuck-he must have kicked too hard because the sole has split entirely which means the side of his bare foot just caught the man's holstered gun.

"Are you alright?" Mark asks as Eduardo limps over to him and starts tugging at the ropes. "Did he get you with something?"

You are not allowed to talk to me, Eduardo says silently, thinking of a day spent with Mark trying to defend himself and acting like he's been the victim all along. You do not have anything to say that I would ever want to hear. He abandons the knots-he was never a fucking boy scout-and crouches down to grab a knife off one of the would-be kidnappers.

"I think they were working for someone," Mark says as the ropes fall away. "Should we interrogate them? Is that what happens now?"

Eduardo drops the knife and it sticks between the floorboards, hilt quivering a little. He doesn't need to ask the men, doesn't need to look in their pockets for the cheque that will inevitably be there. He turns away from Mark and heads for the exit. "I know who they were working for."

Mark pushes the last of the ropes to the ground and jogs to catch up. "How do you-can you tell me who? I think it would make avoiding these situations a whole lot easi-" he breaks off when Eduardo slams him against the wall, one hand around his throat.

"What would make avoiding these situations easier is if you left your meetings in a cab like any other New Yorker. Possibly you could also avoid walking down dark alleys, getting lost or stopping to ask for directions from a man who may as well have had 'flunky' tattooed on his forehead, you idiot."

Mark swallows-Eduardo can feel it through his gloves-and says something that might be 'urk'. Eduardo tugs his hand away and watches Mark slide down the wall, breathing heavily. "I-" Mark says. "Were you following me?"

Eduardo fires a web up and escapes out one of the roof windows.

He follows Mark all the way to the hotel and spends half of the night sitting on the balcony in case anyone else decides today is a good day to kill Mark Zuckerberg.

It's not like he has anyone else to go to at night anymore.

Then

Christy was everything Eduardo had ever dared to dream about finding in a girl. She was clever, beautiful and didn't care where they fucked as long as they were having sex as often as possible, for as long as possible.

Also, she said 'facebook me' like it was an actual word, a normal phrase people really said to each other. She said it to Eduardo, to her friends, to strangers that she met. It was like she was a walking talking advertisement and Eduardo had not previously believed so much goodness could come at once.

He had yet to learn the true meaning of the phrase 'be careful what you wish for.'

"I feel like a rock star," Eduardo had said to Mark that evening, standing outside the bathroom of a club while their girlfriends cleaned up inside.

Mark had only smiled his 'I just had sex' smile and said nothing.

Mark didn't date Alice-he changed the subject quickly whenever Eduardo asked, talking about code pushes or bug fixes-and occasionally he looked at Eduardo and Christy as though he was looking for something that wasn't there.

Eduardo failed to tell Mark about the spider thing. There was always something about TheFacebook to deal with or Dustin was doing something stupid in the background or there were girls-these days there were always girls-and the few moments when it was just the two of them Eduardo didn't want to disrupt Mark's peace by talking about stupid spiders of all things.

But Christy found out after they'd been dating for only a couple of weeks. She came over to drop off a book he'd leant her on economics-pretty and clever, he's hit the ultimate jackpot-at the same time as he was sneaking out in jeans and a hoodie he'd stolen from Mark to go and practice jumping on the quieter side of campus.

He hadn't really been thinking about spider powers when he'd jumped casually towards his desk from his bed, more focused on getting off the bed to pick up the magazine on the desk then head off to get something to eat. When he looked back and realised he'd just jumped three meters up through thin air he realised maybe he hadn't fully tapped the depths of spidery potential.

"What's this?" Christy asked, holding the six hundred page, hardback textbook like a weapon. Eduardo tried not to think about how effective it could be.

"I'm just going out. For a few minutes. There are things I need to do."

"In this?" she reached out to pinch the sleeve of his hoodie and her eyes sharpened. "Is this Mark's hoodie?"

Several responses flicked through Eduardo's head, ranging from 'hoodie, what hoodie?' to 'I don't think I know this Mark you speak of'. "What?"

She took a step closer, which would have been more intimidating if she wasn't a head smaller than him, and peered up into his face. "Are you seeing Mark? Are you going behind my back to see Mark?"

Eduardo blinked because this was never a conversation he really expected to have. "Um... what?"

"Don't you 'what' me, Alice told me what vibe she got off him and you two are certainly very close."

It actually took him a moment to figure out what to say and a moment longer to convince himself that he was actually going to have to say it, however ridiculous it seemed. "Christy. I am not sleeping with Mark Zuckerberg."

She stared at him a moment longer, then stepped away with a nonchalance that said 'pinning my boyfriend against the wall while accusing him of an illicit affair with his best friend? Me? You must be mistaken.' "Where were you going?"

"I was-" he cast around. "Going to the library. To study."

She raised her eyebrows. "Dressed like that?"

Eduardo looked down at himself. He was wearing jeans. Jeans, a hoodie and sneakers and Christy was right to doubt that he would ever so much as leave his room in this outfit. "These are my studying clothes."

She folded her arms. "Are you going to tell me the truth, or are we through?"

Eduardo swallowed, then pushed himself off the wall and locked the door to his room. "Come with me."

So Christy knew.

Now

"Did you sleep last night?" Sy is speaking to Mark in a low voice when Eduardo arrives at the office the next morning. Eduardo coughs to make his presence known before walking past them, trying to give off the air of a man who hasn't even noticed they're there.

As far as Eduardo knows, Mark didn't sleep last night. Facebook never sleeps and Mark is worrying about being so far from it, so this means he puts even more time into coding and planning and speaking to his developers than he does in California.

"You look tired," Gretchen says when Eduardo drops into the chair next to her and reaches for the coffee cup in front of him. "I've told you time and time again you need to get a good night's sleep before these meetings."

Eduardo shakes his head slightly and she stops talking as Mark's team enter the room. The headline on the newspaper under Sy's arm reads: 'Two Million Dollars Stolen from Downtown Bank: Where Was Spider-man?'

He doesn't ask to see the paper. It'll say exactly the same thing as all the others. If Spiderman shows up, he's a menace to society. If he's somewhere else, he's a failure.

"So," Sy says, settling his notes on the table as Mark enters. "You expanded to Yale, Columbia and Stanford."

Then

Eduardo spent three days trying to design a costume before he hit the jackpot idea of getting Dustin and Chris so drunk they would remember nothing in the morning and then persuading Chris design one for him. Once Dustin was drunk, getting a police scanner was surprisingly easy. Eduardo pushed Dustin in the general direction of a policeman and swiped the radio off the man's belt while Dustin was complimenting his uniform and talking about this 'amazing new site that I'm totally building and oh you should get an account, hey Chris can we get this man an account as a special privilege for being my best friend.'

Eduardo slid the radio onto the back of his belt and pulled Dustin away. "Let's leave the nice man alone, Dustin. Maybe if we go back now Mark will make a special account for him."

Dustin beamed and let himself be draped over Chris' not-much-steadier shoulders. Eduardo apologised to the police officer without moving his face clearly into the light then dragged the two of them back to the dorm room.

"Hey Mark," Dustin said. "Hey Mark, hey Mark. I need you to make an account for a police officer."

Mark frowned over his shoulder at Eduardo, who shrugged innocently and fled back to his room where Christy was comparing the prices of red and blue wetsuits.

Eduardo eyed the dummies they were using on the websites. "You know, I think I could wear jeans. I'm sure a jeans-based costume would work. Jeans, a T-shirt and a mask. No one would know it was me."

Christy gave him the Look that he would come to dread and held out a hand. "Scanner." He gave it to her. "Costume." He passed her the napkin with Chris's sketch on and she eyes it for a long moment. "It'll do. Now," she picked up a tape measure, stretching it out. "Get your clothes off."

The wetsuit was just about loose enough for him to breathe. Christy walked around him a few times making tutting noises then put him on a diet and gave him a list of instructions for how to burn the designed pattern into the wetsuit. Eduardo only nearly set it on fire once, which he decided was enough of an achievement.

The eye coverings on the mask played havoc with Eduardo's depth perception but Christy informed him that they were absolutely vital to the overall effect, and if he was going to insist on leaving his fingers bare, he had to put as much effort in elsewhere as possible.

Naturally she brushed off his point that he kind of needed his fingers free because they were the only thing holding him onto the walls that she made him climb stupidly high up so if the grip failed he would fall and die, neither of which were part of TheFacebook's long term business plan.

She made him keep the suit on when they went to bed.

Originally, Eduardo had only wanted a police scanner because he was pretty sure Batman had one in the cartoons. The first few nights when he went out onto the streets without it the most action he got was finding a lost wallet that he couldn't actually take into the police station because-you know-he was wearing a Spiderman costume.

A costume that didn't have pockets, meaning he had to hold the scanner in one hand and during a mugging the next night he had to keep tossing it into the air, throwing a punch, and then catching it before it could smash on the ground.

Christy was very sceptical about his complete lack of telepathic abilities, but she did add a tiny loop on his waistline that he could clip a pager onto. She agreed to sit with the scanner and page him about anything worth hearing. It was a system. Not the greatest system, but a system.

The day he foiled his first bank robbery was the day he first appeared in the papers-a tiny mention of a masked figure helping the police-and the start of his endless quest to get the journalists to spell his name correctly.

Now

When Mark leaves to go to the toilet and doesn't come back, Eduardo seriously considers quitting the superhero business entirely. Sy reads through his notes, shifts them around, reads through them again. Gretchen taps her foot and watches her watch. The young woman who's just here to watch keeps looking over at the door as though she is actually worried about Mark.

Maybe Eduardo should toss the Spiderman mask at her and tell her to go help him herself.

"Should we-" she starts, flushing a little and looking around as though not at all convinced she's allowed to speak. "I mean, do we think he's okay? Sy?"

Sy goes to push back his chair. Eduardo focuses on the amount of publicity Facebook will get if the news breaks that the creator has been threatened/kidnapped/shot and stands up first. "Since we're apparently on a break, I think I'll use the facilities too." He looks over at the woman. "If he's in there, I'll try to hurry him up. Some of us have things to do."

He ignores Sy's scoff and his muttered, "This could have been over yesterday if someone didn't keep vanishing for hours on end," in favour of letting the conference door slam closed and ducking into the worryingly familiar broom closet to tug off his suit and pull the mask over his head.

The only trace of Mark in the toilets is a trail of water leading away from the sinks, which wouldn't even be notable except that the hand towel dispenser is full. The only reason for Mark not to dry his hands would be if he had to leave quickly.

A janitor does a double take when Spiderman steps out of the bathroom. Eduardo pushes past him and to the end of the corridor where he almost pushes the call button for the lift before remembering how that will look.

He can see the headlines now. 'Spider-man Waiting for Elevators Instead of Saving Our City'. He pushes open a window and climbs up the wall instead.

Mark is on the roof. Eduardo hesitates below the lip to listen. "What do you want from me?" Mark asks.

"What do you think we want?"

"You're not touching my site." It's nice to know that when his life is under threat, Mark's voice still shows no emotion unless Facebook is involved. There are still constants in the world. "And you can tell whoever sent you-whoever sent all of the goons you have running after me-that no one will get their hands on Facebook as long as I am breathing."

Oh, bad move, Eduardo thinks. Really bad move. He edges sideways two meters and counts down from five under his breath. He's barely on three when Mark falls backwards off the roof and into his outstretched arm.

If Eduardo was a naive idiot, he might've thought from Mark's expression that Mark was actually happy to see him. "Has anyone ever told you you're an idiot?" he snaps instead.

Mark curves an arm around his shoulders, hanging on for dear life. "Aside from you?"

There are footsteps getting, someone coming to check that Mark's dead. Eduardo has Mark in one hand, the building on the other and if this attacker also has a gun-

"I caught a cab home," Mark says. "And another one this morning. Apparently that just makes them more persis-"

A masked man leans over the side of the building, and Eduardo drops Mark.

He will never tire of the shocked looks on people's faces when they see him. Eduardo grips the side of the building with both hands and flings a leg up and over, heel slamming into the man's face. With one hand on the horizontal surface of the roof and the man staggering backwards, he lets go with the other and takes his eyes off the assailant long enough to glance down, aim and shoot a web down that sticks to the back of Mark's falling form.

Something very solid slams into his head and for a moment all he sees is stars. The web starts to detach and he slams the end into the side of the building, praying that it sticks before letting go as the second enemy-of course there were two-grabs his arm and drags him up. "You're becoming a problem."

"I do try," Eduardo says, shooting webs into the man's eyes.

Then

In the beginning, Eduardo had no idea why white pus was leaking from his wrists. Christy scraped some off allegedly to analyse but the only result she came back with was that it was perfect for gluing on false nails.

"Maybe this is the negative side," he offered, pressing his wrist to his bedroom wall and leaving a white spot that he could attach a poster to. "I mean, I've got lucky as far as reactions to a spider bite go, maybe this is the compromise." He took a step back to admire his handiwork. "Do you think I should call Dr Jones? What if this stuff is toxic?"

"We're going to have to redesign the suit," Christy said, holding the sleeves up for closer inspection. "Or you'll stick to it."

"I'm going to New York with Mark, I could visit Dr Jones then. But what if Mark notices these?"

Christy looked over at him. "I thought you were just waiting for the right time to tell him everything?" At the time, Eduardo pretended not to hear the faint bitterness in her voice. It was his secret, not theirs and he could tell whoever he wanted. "Surely a week in New York with just the two of you would be the right time?"

Eduardo closed his eyes, turned his wrists down and rested his head against the back of his hands. "Christy, I'm not sleeping with Mark. I'm not dating Mark, I'm not interested in Mark, Mark isn't gay."

Christy's head jerked up like a lion spotting its prey. "Mark isn't gay? Just Mark?"

"Christy, fuck, I'm not gay. You know I'm not gay, you've had plenty of evidence to support that. You are my girlfriend, I'm with you, I'm only with you."

"You're with Mark all the time," she remarked, picking at non-existent dirt beneath her new fingernails. "You talk to him about everything." She sucked her lips in, glancing up at him. "You never take me to New York."

Eduardo didn't bother to fight the groan that rose up at this. "You've never asked," he reminded her, forgetting momentarily that she was crazy. "And I'm going to New York for meetings with advertisers, not for fun. It's for Facebook."

"Oh it's for Facebook. Oh, Facebook is the most important thing ever. You've definitely been spending too much time with Mark." One of the nails snapped and anger flashed briefly across her face, replaced all too quickly with a sickly sweet smile. "Hey, what will you do if they ever develop a way to have sex with a website? Then, Mark won't need you anymore."

"Christy."

"Eduardo."

"Get out."

She snatched her bag and the police scanner from his desk. "Call me when you get home. Buy me something sparkly."

Eduardo dropped into a chair. "Whatever you want."

"And tell Mark he's an asshole." The door slammed behind her. Eduardo reached for his costume and the scissors, slicing the lower arms off with sharp, violent movements that left rough edges and didn't alleviate his anger at all.

The cut pieces stuck to his wrists and when he tried to tug them away the white stuff stretched out like webbing. After he'd used the scissors to cut that too, he called Dr Jones.

Now

The two identical, black-suited figures are unconscious when Eduardo stumbles over to the edge of the building and reaches down to grab the end of the web that Mark is dangling from. By the time he has coaxed his aching muscles enough to bring Mark up to the edge so he can pull himself over, the villains have fled. Through a door, off the edge of the building, by a silent jet. Eduardo doesn't know and right at this moment he is far too tired to care. He drops onto the wall at the edge of the building and wishes the whole world would just leave him alone for a little while.

Unfortunately, the world spits on all his wishes and Mark sits awkwardly behind him. "Thanks," he says. "Again."

Eduardo doesn't say anything.

"You know you have a Facebook fanpage," Mark says. Of course Spiderman has a fanpage, everyone and their cat apparently does these days. "If there's anything you want on it, I could... you know."

"Cut the hyphen out of Spiderman."

Mark turns very faintly red. "I already did," he mutters. "I mean-you left notes and it was never hyphenated so I just thought."

Eduardo pushes himself to his feet. "I should go. I hear sometimes people who aren't you need saving in this town." He climbs down the wall, redresses and slips back into the conference room, arranging his face into a puzzled expression.

"So I just saw Spiderman in the hallways and he told me Mark Zuckerberg is on the roof. Apparently billionaires going for walks and getting stuck behind locked doors is something superheroes have to deal with in this town."

Sy immediately rushes past him to go and fetch his client. Eduardo waits until most of Mark's team have joined him, before daring to walk across the room-unable to stop himself letting out soft gasps every time he puts weight on his left leg.

"Are you okay?" Gretchen asks

"Tripped," Eduardo bites out, dropping into his chair as Mark's team spill back into the room. "I'll be fine."

Mark sits slowly and stares out the window, clearly thinking about something completely different and really they didn't need to wait until he got back, he could've ignored them quite easily from wherever the twins took him.

"So," Gretchen touches his hand briefly in reassurance then returns to her notes. "Why did the meetings go terribly?"

"Mark was asleep."

Mark looks up. "I was not asleep."

Eduardo meets his eyes and thinks you would be dead if not for me. "I wish Mark had been asleep."

Then

Eduardo was antsy almost from the moment they arrived in the city. On the walk from the station to the hotel they passed three dark alleys, two banks with frankly shocking security and a bar fight that Eduardo couldn't break up because Mark would start asking questions.

It only got worse when the meetings started. There were two on the first day and Eduardo had spent so long planning for these, working out every tiny thing they might ask, every point where they could come up with a question that might make everything go wrong. He planned for these moments, anticipated them, wrote out model answers and memorized them. He had remembered thinking as long as he didn't have to rush out to fight crime, nothing could go wrong.

He hadn't accounted for Mark. It hadn't even occurred to him that Mark would agree to meet with advertisers if he was still opposed to advertising. Somehow he had managed to convince himself that Mark had agreed to all of this. He had become complacent.

"Is he asleep?" the head of advertising for Mountain Dew asked, cutting through Eduardo's carefully prepared statistics to listen to Mark snoring.

"No," said Mark, reclining the office chair as far as it went.

"Then why are you making that sound?"

Mark raised his head to meet the man's eyes. "Because I am bored, this is boring and I hate wasting my time with people who can't offer my site anything it needs."

The man turns his gaze on Eduardo. "I don't think we can work with you at this time. Good luck with your project. In six months, when you find you need a real job, come talk to me."

Mark slid his hands into his pockets and left without another word. Eduardo forced himself to smile and shake the man's hand-so many years of his father's teaching finally paying off-before running after Mark's retreating back. "What the hell was that?"

Mark shrugged. "I told you, no pop-ups for mountain dew."

"Then what should we advertise? I forgot, the site's cool, isn't it. Maybe we should try drugs? Alcohol? I bet we'd increase our audience exponentially with a scheme like that."

"I said no ads. Not yet."

Eduardo had to count to ten in his head to stay calm. "Then why did you come out here with me?"

Mark only shrugged again.

Back at the hotel, Eduardo called Christy and invited her out to New York. Mark's expression soured, but he just tugged his laptop out of its bag and wired in.

"I'm going out," Eduardo said, hanging up on Christy and checking the time on his watch. "Just stay here and code until I get back."

Naturally, telling Mark to sit still and code was the one thing that would make him look up, pushing his headphones back with a frown. "Where are you going?"

It was the perfect opportunity to explain about Dr Jones, the spider bite, the sticky white pus that he was covering up with plastic wrap and bandages. He could lift up his shirt to show Mark the costume, explain about saving lives and how that was important. He should definitely tell Mark that sometimes the Winklevii get worrying looks in their eyes and Mark should watch his step when they're nearby.

"Out," Eduardo said. "I promised I'd visit a friend."

Mark's frown only grew. "I didn't know you knew people in the city."

"You don't know everything about me, Mark," he said-truthfully this time. "I'll be back later. Try not to break the site while I'm gone."

Mentioning the possibility of TheFacebook breaking had the desired effect, Mark's eyes darted immediately back to the lines of code. Eduardo grabbed his backpack and slipped out so Mark wouldn't have to pretend to care any longer. He caught a bus across town, arriving at the same run down lab he had first visited. Dr Jones answered the door, tugging him past various whirring machines to a desk covered in the kind of wasteland Eduardo would expect to see after an explosion.

Dr Jones brushed half of it off onto the floor and sat, gesturing to Eduardo to do the same. "You say there's a white fluid coming from your arms?"

Eduardo tugged the wristband off his left wrist (snatching a letter opener from the desk to slice the strands of webbing that stretch out when he does so) and lay his arm flat on the desk for Dr Jones to examine. "I thought it might have been a side effect of contact with the spider," Eduardo lied.

Dr Jones gave him a look that suggested he knew exactly what Eduardo wasn't saying, then turned to his wrist, using the letter opener to tug a few strands of web up. "Just like the other one," he said, with something akin to triumph.

Eduardo froze. "Other one?"

"Your spider," Dr Jones said, releasing his arm and reaching into the drawers for a battered box. "Does not like being kept in captivity and has been discovered to be capable of eating through several layers of safety glass."

Eduardo felt his face heat up. "You should leave him with a puzzle or something. I think he just gets bored."

Dr Jones sighed and reached into his drawer for a second, smaller box. "One of our interns was bitten. Fortunately we developed a cure which he was able to take." He opened the second box to reveal a syringe full of a yellowy orange fluid. "Before we did so he presented many symptoms that we were able to analyse including the ability to walk up walls, superhuman strength, advanced senses and the production of a mucus stronger than steel, capable of carrying impossible weights and sticky enough to attach to anything without letting go. Some of the staff were wondering what could be done with this when it was still just gunk on the arm and they developed these."

He opened the second box, revealing two metal wrist band type contraptions. "The mucus is sucked in here, passes through a mechanism not unlike the firing of a gun, and shoots out from this hole at a high speed. It should drag out a trail of mucus behind it, leaving an impossibly strong and sticky rope that could be used to swing on, climb, or fight with."

Eduardo raised his eyebrows. "Like a spi-"

"Grappling hook," Dr Jones said. "Just like a climber with a grappling hook." He placed the device back into the box. "Now obviously this is lab property and the lab cannot be seen to associate with vigilantes that may or may not be in the vicinity. Unfortunately for us, we have terrible security to the point where if I turned my back and one of these boxes had vanished, I would not be able to say where it had gone." He closed the lid on both. "Now if you'd excuse me, I have to go check some data."

There were gloves and boots in with the web propellers, made from a material thin enough that it didn't impede his gripping abilities at all.

He swung on the webs all the way home.

Now

Eduardo says nearly everything he can remember about the meeting with Sean. He leaves out the extensive background check he did, where the only concrete conclusion was that Sean Parker hadn't yet done anything worthy of the title 'supervillain' and the fact that Christy kept retreating to the bathroom to check the police scanner, then returning and sending him off-again on pretext of going to the bathroom-to foil three muggings, a bank robbery and a jewellery heist.

When Gretchen asks what it was that he disliked about Sean, he can't say 'my spidey sense was tingling.' So instead he comes up with a lot of bullshit very quickly about former companies and reliability.

That's when the hallway explodes, followed swiftly by the window and the side wall. Sy dives under the table, grabbing at the legs of Mark's chair to tug him after them. Eduardo grabs Gretchen and shouts "Run," before pulling her through the side wall and into chaos. The offices down the hallway are exploding one by one, sending flaming paper and computer parts flying across the hallway. Eduardo keeps one hand on Gretchen's head to make her stay down, and drags her into the girls' bathroom where the sinks provide adequate cover.

"I was here the whole time," he shouts, tugging his deposition clothes off over his head. "Whatever happens next, it wasn't me."

He pulls gloves and mask on while running back out of the bathroom and through the collapsing ceiling to the depositions room where a block of concrete is causing the table to weaken in the middle, cracks spreading out across the wood veneer.

Eduardo grabs the block, throwing it out the gaping hole that used to be a window, remembering at the last minute to toss a few webs that catch it and hold it suspended above the street.

"Well well well," says the last voice Eduardo wants to hear. "Didn't you get here fast."

The two black suited figures are standing in the space that used to be the back wall, lights flickering above their heads and chaos falling around them. Eduardo turns away from the window. "Just doing my civic duty," he says, flinging two webs forwards where they stick to the two figures and he can tug backward, sending them both slamming into the wall.

Eduardo drops the webs, sinking to a crouch so he can see under the table where Sy is huddled into a ball and Marylin has an arm around Mark's shoulders to keep him down. Eduardo addresses his comments to her, since apparently she's the one person capable of keeping her head. "Get Mark out."

Something hits him in the back of the neck, snapping his forehead into the side of the table. Marylin is running already, dragging Mark behind her as he says something indistinct about not leaving his laptop behind. Programmers, they're all the same.

Black suit #2 is moving around the table after them while #1 takes the chance to slam Eduardo into the table again. He shoots webs from both wrists, tripping #2 at the same time as giving him leverage to tug himself up, out of #1's grasp and drop into a two footed downwards attack between his shoulder blades.

There is the distinct sound of the faceless figure's neck breaking, but Eduardo doesn't have time to worry about that now with Marylin and Mark barely out of the room and #2 powering after them like a rampaging bull. Eduardo flings two more webs in his way and leaps into the fight, blocking the figure's wild jabs and driving his own hard punches into #2's stomach until-gasping for breath-the villain falls to his knees.

Then Eduardo has time to look back at #1, where Sy is tugging the black fabric mask up. "Is that... Cameron Winklevoss?"

Eduardo flings a web back to snatch the body from Sy's grasp, loops an arm under #2's armpits to hoist him up and shoots a web at the building opposite, leaping out of the window with both villains in tow.

Cameron Winklevoss's mask falls off mid flight, his head lolling at an impossible angle. Definitely dead then. Eduardo makes a mental note to add it to the tally.

Then

They returned from New York. The site still had no ads, and whenever Eduardo brought it up Mark would mutter about 'ending the party at eleven' like whatever Sean Parker said was gospel truth.

Eduardo did more digging, went into every record he could legally access and a whole handful that he couldn't, but he didn't turn up anything more than he already had. Sean was paranoid, delusional and a complete dick, but he hadn't done anything that fell under the category of 'evil supervillain plots' yet. Not unless you were a major music label.

Then Eduardo was accused of animal cruelty and Mark revealed-off hand-that he was planning to move to California over the summer.

Eduardo stormed back to his room in a foul mood, thrust the chicken into Christy's hands with the advice: "don't feed it chicken," kicked his clothes off and left through the window.

He had told Mark as soon as they returned to Harvard that he was going to go back to New York over the summer, making up some bullshit about an internship because Mark was too distracted to really take in anything Eduardo said, making it a bad time to mention the Spiderman thing. Eduardo had stopped two major crimes and one supervillain during the short time they were in New York. He was needed there. That was where he was supposed to be.

He smashed through the window of the Crimson offices feet first. The only person still there was a secretary, sorting files into piles and jumping off her chair when Eduardo landed in a mess of glass shards on her carpet, the web shooters slicing him free of the cable he swung in on. "Who was your source?" he demanded. "For the Facebook article, who planted the story?"

She trembled, but managed to open her mouth. "I'm not supposed to disclose-"

Eduardo smashed the other window.

"Divya Narendra! He had pictures and he told us to mention Facebook as much as possible to lower its credibility." She cowered back a little. "Freedom of the press says we can-"

Eduardo left out of the smashed window and went back to his damn chicken. He fed it-grains-and went to bed. The next day he tracked down Divya Narendra, which took far more time than it should've since apparently rich students didn't stay in dorms, they had top secret hide outs on the edge of campus with three Bentleys parked outside and a noise like some giant generator running inside.

He had to run back to his room for his costume, and by the time he got around to scaling the wall it was already getting dark. Inside, however, was still brightly lit. If he clung to the wall near the top, he could see through the windows to the large, open-plan space. The generator was in one corner, cables running power from it to a second machine in the centre of the room, a huge glass and steel structure full of strange coloured chemicals and spinning dials.

Divya Narendra was standing next to it, a Winklevii on either side, saying something about damages and punitive relief which presumably meant Mark's carefully worded letter hadn't quite done the trick of throwing them off their case that Facebook was some kind of HarvardConnection knock off.

Three men, two of which were Olympic athletes and one of which was a story selling asshole. Spiderman could take three men. He smashed the window with his elbow, instantly attracting the attention of all three men as he slid inside. The Winklevii both stepped forward, Divya shrinking back into the shadows behind them. "Spiderman," he called, full of the confidence that comes with being hidden behind two much larger men. "So you got here first. I suppose you picked up on the clues I left at the Great Gold Heist?"

Eduardo couldn't remember anything that great about stopping a couple of black masked thugs from running off with a briefcase of gold bars, and he certainly hadn't hung around long enough to pick up any kind of clues. "First?" he said, to keep them distracted while he crawled upside down on the roof, looking for the right angle.

"Of course, I'm expecting someone else to show up for vengeance at any moment. I capture and kill you now so that when he comes, you are incapable of swooping in for a daring rescue the way you have foiled so many of my plans."

Divya had the same glint in his eyes that Sean got whenever he mentioned case equity. "Which plans?" Eduardo asked.

Divya opened his mouth, then closed it with a satisfied smile. "Really, did you think it would be that easy to get me to disclose all my-"

Eduardo dropped directly onto Tyler's head, Divya still wittering on for half a moment before he realised he had been played as a distraction. His cry of outrage was barely a flash on Eduardo's attention, however, as Cameron was already swinging in with two quick punches. Eduardo blocked one, tensed his stomach for the second and head butted Cameron under the chin, sending him stumbling backwards as Tyler pushed himself to his feet.

"You-Spiderman-are going to rue the day you interfered in my-"

Eduardo blanked Divya out completely, focusing on blocking the punches from both sides, taking Cameron out with a spinning kick to the groin, landing catlike on all four appendages as Tyler's foot caught his leg and sent him stumbling.

Cameron was getting up again behind him. Eduardo pushed himself onto his hands so he could slam both feet into Tyler's chest-sending him flying back against the far wall of the warehouse-and flipped to his feet in time to block Cameron's right hook.

They had to be on steroids, Eduardo decided as Tyler pushed himself out of the wall to rush him again. Or they had been bitten by some kind of radioactive rhino. Eduardo waited until Tyler had sufficient momentum before leaping out of the way, sending Tyler careering into his brother like some kind of cartoon.

Eduardo's ribs ached, and when he tried to put weight on his leg, it buckled beneath him. Still, he turned to Divya in the brief moment of rest as the Winklevii attempted to push themselves up at the other side of the hall. "You're going to go away for everything you've done," he said, trying not to pant too heavily. "You're going to go away for a long-" His spidey senses kicked in a moment too late, giving the man behind time to grab him, wrapping his arms into a tight bear hug and holding him so tight he couldn't move.

Divya's smile was like ice down Eduardo's back as he walked forward and reached out to grab the top of the mask. "I want to look into your face when you die, Spiderman." He tugged hard enough to tear the mask as it slid up Eduardo's neck and over his nose. His hair was going to be completely unmanageable after this, not that that would matter if he lost his entire head.

Divya stared into his eyes for a long moment, then laughed. "Well, when I said two birds with one stone I didn't realise they were both the same bird, Mr Saverin." He gestured to whoever was holding Eduardo and the man increased the pressure, making it almost impossible to breath.

Eduardo thought he might have heard one of his ribs crack. "Why did you plant the story about the chicken?"

Divya laughed. "Because I am very concerned for animal welfare, naturally. Also I knew the news would bring you here and I thought I could use you to send a message to Mr Zuckerberg."

Eduardo shifted his weight as best he could, testing his chest. "What kind of message?"

"Shut down TheFacebook," Cameron said, walking up beside Divya.

"Or you'll never see your CFO again," Tyler finished, stepping onto his other side.

"It is a pity," Divya said. "I was quite looking forward to killing Spiderman, but I suppose I can always get to that later. Right now I just have to get you locked up where no one will ever look for you. Tyler, lock him up." He turned to walk, the Winklevii both turning with him.

The man holding Eduardo lifted him off the ground, his arms loosening very slightly for the instant that Eduardo required to lash out at his legs-knocking him off balance-then drop to the ground and fling the man over his back and into the far wall where his head smashed into the concrete.

He fell to the ground, face up. Tyler Winklevoss's face up, in fact.

Eduardo looked over at Divya Narendra, turning back with a Winklevoss on each side. "Well," he said coolly. "Now I can't let you leave."

Eduardo looked slowly between the dead Tyler Winklevoss on the ground and the living Tyler Winklevoss at Divya's side. "That's not possible. How is that possible?"

"The Winklevosses are genetically enhanced clones," Divya said. "Honestly, I thought you had to be clever to get into the Phoenix." He threw Eduardo's mask across the floor, where it spun to a halt at his feet. "Goodbye, Spiderman." He pressed a button on the wall, before pushing through the door and slamming it shut behind him.

His Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss both turned. "Prepare to die," Cameron said, picking up a chair from the side and swinging it to get accustomed to the weight.

"You're going to kill me, I suppose?" Eduardo said, regulating his breathing and trying not to show how much his chest ached. "You and what army?"

Naturally that was the point where the side on the giant machine rolled up to reveal at least fifty Winklevii clones, all in black suits and all looking in the mood for a good murder.

Eduardo picked up his mask and wondered if he should call Mark to say he'd be late.

Part 2