Summary:Some bad engineers vs a couple of good engineers. For certain values of 'good'. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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The building along the street across from Katz's Deli (best bagels in the area. No Question) was getting a few late-night visitors.
The 1st New York Bank was currently being accosted for a late-night withdrawal, and nobody was interested in cash withdrawal limits. What they DID have was a 4x4 truck, fifty feet of carbon-steel chain, two shotguns, two assault rifles and a dream. Common sense need not apply to this gang of four. Mike, Tommy, Nick, and Dave were in the process of wrapping the chain around the standalone ATM in the drive-up lane. Chain up the ATM, pull it out of the ground, tow it away…(general vague understanding regarding getting the money out)…and PROFIT!
Elmo just happens to be on his way to rummage around in an office dumpster, where people on large requisition budgets occasionally put whole computers and phones and monitors and just, these are the best dumpsters. Night time is the best time for liberating useful things from dumpsters. He has to make sure nobody also put fridge-leavings or unwanted leftover birthday cake, that one time was really gross.
So he's absolutely not expecting to see these guys with their truck and the chain and the assault rifles, oy gevalt! Elmo real fast and casual-like ducks back behind the corner he just turned. Then peers out, scowling. This is his neighborhood!
Mike looks behind him from the driver's seat of the truck, a big F-450 with HEMI on the hood. He needs this more than the others, he bought this truck on credit. "We all set back there?"
Tommy and Dave were checking the fit of the looped chain. Nick examined it, then called back, "Just about!"
Then a new voice chimed in. "You realized of course this will NEVER WORK."
Four sets of eyes (five if Elmo follows suit) look up to the underside of the overhanging roof to keep bank customers from getting rained on. Resting there and watching them with a tilted head, the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man gazed back down at them.
"You know those things have alarms…and GPS tra-"
"WASTE 'IM!" Nick yelled, and Tommy and Dave went for their shotguns.
"Oh you idiots," Elmo hisses under his breath. The unexpected voice from an unexpected angle makes him look up, too. A masked vigilante ain't hardly news in this town anymore but he still grins, since nobody is around to see him and accuse him of being uncool. Hell, yeah, Spider-Man. Then hey, in for a penny. He digs out something from a pocket: a flat coin battery. The guys all have their attention on Spidey, so Elmo can slink closer. With a sidearm throw he whips the coin battery under the truck. Next out of his pocket is a garage remote control. *Click* and the truck motor just dies, sputtering out. What's that, no spark in the plugs and no ignite in the nition?
Mike frowns as the brand new truck dies suddenly. "What the blue Hell…" he begins and then the gunfire begins.
Watching Spider-Man is like watching a guy in a film, only everyone ELSE in the film is a few frames behind him. The shotgun blasts pepper the steel underside, but Spidey's not there. He's landed next to one of the other islands, the ones with the pneumatic delivery setups. "Shotguns? Really? C'MON, my bois, you HAVE to do better than…"
The shotguns swivel towards him, and then he is jumping to the side as he webs Dave to the pillar next to the ATM. He lands on his left hand, upside-down, firing something that is clearly some kind of mechanical device attached to the wrist. It is sleek, streamlined, and it shoots a thick glob of webbing into the barrel of Tommy's shotgun.
Elmo slips closer yet, running low to get to the bank. It's just like Fortnite except he could really die. He doesn't want any of those guns on him. In fact, he doesn't want anybody holding guns at all. He reaches into his satchel, fumbling around—and Spider-Man has a device that shoots webs?! "Whoa. I always thought it just came outta his wrists," he mutters, while he pulls out a pair of weird little gadgets of his own.
There's a crackle and electricity leaps to life, grounding on, very specifically, the guns. Heats 'em up and gives their wielders a hell of an unpleasant shock.
The other shotgun glows a dull red, and the web-glue actually goes crazy from the heat. Well, actually, the proper term is that it crazes IN the heat, but either way, the gun is useless. Nick was getting his AK-47 ready when it glowed red, too, and he dropped it in the sudden heat. Then he looks up to see a wide web coming towards him and thinks, "Welllll…CRUD."
And then the web knocks him down on his back and webs him to the ground. Tommy starts running, and Mike is trying vainly to start the truck again. Spider-Man webs the rear axle to the asphalt WHILE he aims his other arm at the fleeing Tommy.
"AFT!" he called out, then speared him in the back with a webline. Tommy's legs keep going even though the upper body stops, and he lands on his back. He begins reeling Tommy in like a landed fish.
Elmo giggles, hyped up from adrenaline, doing a little crazing of his own. He hits a hard switch on the soldered-together whatever it is in his hand. The truck roars to life, but alas for Mike, his brand new truck isn't his anymore. Nope. Now it's Elmo's. For the next few yards or so anyway; Elmo's range of influence is not very long. Then Spidey has glued the rear axle down. Truck ain't going anywhere. So Elmo flips the power locks, trapping Mike inside. Then, just to be a real jerk, he turns on the radio and sliiiides that volume all the way up. That'll teach ya.
Mike is trying to undo the seatbelt but lets go of it and claps his hands over his ears, trying to drown out the sound of David Lee Roth going crazy fr0om the heat. Spider-Man can hear the music, wincing at the sound. He'd better get this guy jugged and get the other guy out of there before his eardrums blew.
He got Tommy all the way back in, then sprayed his lower body with webbing before going to the truck's drivers-side door. Mike was huddled in his seat moaning, his moans unheard in the screeching music.
Really, it's the guy's own fault for paying too much for that stereo system. That's Elmo's story and he's sticking to it. Still, he has pity on him, and just blows out the stereo instead. The speakers squeal, pop, and go silent. Okay, pity, mixed with spite.
All that from a little coin battery sitting innocently under the truck! With any luck, the firing pins in the guns melted, too. It's tricky to dose the electricity, though, and Elmo erred on the side of not accidentally cooking anybody's heart.
He rises up from his crouch, still pretty nervous about something he can't handle coming flying at him, and sidles forward. Dudes are webbed up everywhere.
Spider-Man tries the door, but it's still locked. At roughly the same time the speakers blow, Spidey grabs the side door and…just ripped ot off the truck. Well, that happened.
Mike tumbled out of the truck, curled up in the fetal position, and Spidey spins him a spidersilk blanket to cover him and confine him. He shakes his head as he looks at the truck. "Guess I'm not the only one with bad luck," he says wryly.
Bad luck in this case is short and Jewish and too smart for its own good. Elmo's tucking his gadgets away, and flinches when Spider-Man just rips off the truck door. Should he say something? He should say something. "Hey, Spidey. Don'twebme!" he blurts, holding his hands out to show he's unarmed.
Spidey turns to spot Elmo, but the Spider-Sense is only giving a mild buzz of caution, not imminent danger. He realizes he has both wrists aimed at Elmo, then lowers them.
"Do you have a phone? Can you call 911, sir?' he asks politely. He can't use his phone for this, his harmonizer is on the fritz.
Okay, this is awkward. Elmo says, in the tone of someone completely off balance, "Yyyyeah. Yeah, sure." Should he…like, tell him? Elmo gets that feeling one gets when one has been messing around behind a teacher's back and then the teacher turns around and asks one for the right answer to how Mercutio feels in Act 2 or whatever. Anyway, he pulls out his phone. "Got it. You, uh, you okay?"
Spidey pauses, then checks himself over. No wounds from the buckshot, but Elmo DOES see three dime-szed holes in different places on the suit.
"No new holes I didn't start the night with. Are you all right, sir?"
Elmo winces, alarmed, upon seeing the gunshot holes. His eyes flick to Spider-Man's masked face on an instinctive reaction check—is he acting hurt? No? All right. "Yeah, I'm…please don't call me that, it feels weird." Then he remembers he's supposed to be calling 911, and dials. Boop boop boop. "Name's Elmo."
Spidey nods, but he is already checking the fastest escape route. He would stick around until the cops got here. "Hey, Elmo. I…guess you know who I am. If not, welcome to New York City."
"Born here," Elmo says, because it wouldn't be an exchange between New Yorkers without that. 911 picks up. "Hey. I found these guys, they're all webbed up, couple of 'em seem like they might be hurt. You know the bank across from Katz's, on Houston? Yeah, that. Nah, I didn't see anything, just heard some shots and found 'em like this. Okay." He presses the phone to his chest, so it doesn't come across when he sheepishly offers Spidey, "Buy you a cup of coffee?"
Spidey looks around. "I…don't drink…coffee." He looks down the street. "Tell you what. If you can get six glazed donuts and six of whatever you want, I can meet you at the park at the end of the strret."
Elmo tips his head and hikes his eyebrows at the same time in a classic NYC 'awright' kinda thing. "Meetcha there." He checks with 911, hangs up with them—he's not going to be here when the cops arrive, whatever Spider-Man wants to do. The coin battery, he abandons. He's got a million of 'em, almost literally. But the truck's engine dies again as he heads off.
A box of donuts and a take out holder of coffee and ice water later, he's at the park, standing around anxiously with his hands in his coat pockets.
Just as Elmo arrives, he hears the familiar voice from above him. "Hey, Elmo."
Spidey is there, slowly descending on a webline upside down, legs bent under (over) his body. he flips over at eye-level, landing lightly on his feet. "How much do I owe you for the half-dozen?"
Elmo eats that up, grinning as he watches Spidey descend. "Eh, forget it. Ain't nothin'. S-so, your—" he taps his wrist, "that's artifical! I always thought you must have, yannow, spinnerets."
Spidey smiles, lifting the mask to nose-level…and without the mask, he sounds painfully young. junior high, high school at most. Spider-Man? Not even that.
And one of the biggest papers in New York was calling for his head.
He holds up the wrist for Elmo to see.
The craftmanship is startling—Elmo has probably never seen a device like it. The bracelet fits around the wrist, the mechanical "spinneret" that dispenses the webbing, the spoon design that works on the adjusted pressure to control the output and configuration. Completely homemade, but a feat of mechanical engineering.
Elmo hides his surprise that Spider-Man doesn't even seem to be a man yet. Even younger than Elmo himself, maybe. Instead he leans foward, eyes on the device. "No kiddin'," he breathes. He doesn't make any attempt to grab Spidey's wrist or touch him in any way, although he's clearly enraptured. "That is a hell of a piece of work. You're an engineer too, huh? Some guys got all the luck."
Spidey looked at him as he re-adjusted the glove with the webshooter.
Yeah. Some guys got all the luck. All of it BAD.
"Yeah…all the luck…" he says, his voice suddenly sober, and he takes one of the glazed donuts and stuffs it in his mouth before it all comes out just what KIND of luck he had.
After he swallows, he asks, "What were you doing out there?"
Elmo said something wrong, he can sense it. He doesn't know what it was, but he said something wrong. Well, par for the course on that one. He picks up a donut and doesn't eat it, just kind of turning it over in his hands. "Findin' stuff. You know. Stuff that's got stuff in it I can use. I'm an engineer too."
Spidey blinks. "Really? A particular kind? Mechanical, physical, electrical?" He nods at Elmo's explanation. "This ain't the best place through. You would be better off along the street east of Empire State University. They call it Engineer's Row. The Science Wing is along that road, as well as the three main brain fraternities. Much better picking over there."
"Mechanical, electrical." Elmo fidgets. He laughs, somewhat ruefully. "Yeah, I know about that place, but man. There's competition there, lemme tell you. …I probably don't need to tell you, you probably know. Plus, I already got a record, and," he shrugs uncomfortably. "Keepin' my head down."
Spider-Man ohs. "Well…if you're keeping your nose clean, then I can suggest the best time for picking. Wednesday night is when the best stuff is tossed out. They buy the equipment over the weekend, install on Monday and Tuesday, and toss the stuff out Wednesday. The pickup is Thursday morning.
Elmo's eyebrows go up. "Yeah?" Plans suddenly churn behind his eyes, all kinds of thoughts in motion. "You don't say. That's worth half a dozen donuts." He grins crookedly at Spidey, searching the upper half of his mask for a moment, trying to find a gaze to meet. None found; he looks away again. "Thanks, pal. Appreciate it."
Spidey chuckles. "I just gave you the tools. How you use them is up to you." He looked over to his left. "Uh-oh. Canvassing cops." He takes out five donuts, lifting the mask to put one in his mouth, holding the other four with a finger through each one.
Then Elmo hears, "Dispatch, I have a Spider-Man sighting!"
"That's my cue. Better walk away while he's chasing me," he says, his mouth muffled slightly by the donut. He starts running along the sidewalk, and the cop follows in hot pursuit.
Elmo tips an acknowledging finger. "See ya around, huh?" And he does walk away, utterly casual, just another figure minding his own business in the night.