Peter Parker was an ordinary high school student.
Well, ordinary, except for one thing. He knew a superhero.
Gwen Stacy was the Queens superhero everyone had been talking about lately, the one people called Silk.
With the appearances of the Dark Knight, Drex Valen, and the Fantastic Three, ordinary people had slowly begun to realize that the world around them was changing.
Heroes like Silk in Queens, and Daredevil and Supergirl in Hell's Kitchen, were no longer just the stuff of rumor. They were becoming part of daily life.
Silk got her na from the white, skin-tight suit she wore, a design that resembled a web and carried a spider emblem. Gwen herself actually liked the na Silk quite a bit.
She felt like she was helping her father clean up the ss around him, so she had thrown herself into hero work with relentless energy. As for Peter discovering her identity, that had been pure accident. Her schedule had been completely inverted, she had been sleep-deprived and half out of her mind, and Peter, worried about her, had tried to check on her.
Instead, he had stumbled straight into her secret.
At first, Gwen had been terrified. But after realizing that Peter Parker was the kind of friend who could keep a secret, she relaxed and stopped worrying about it.
That was also why, when Peter told her that his Uncle Ben had died from a gun accidentally going off in the hands of a thug, and asked her to help track the man down, Gwen had thought it over and agreed.
"Still, I only have a sketch. How am I supposed to find the guy?" Gwen muttered with a small frown.
She had already spent several days searching. Aside from dealing with a few minor problems, she had found nothing.
What she did not know was that Flint Marko had already been arrested and sent to prison.
"What are you looking for?"
A voice suddenly sounded beside Gwen's ear.
She jumped so violently that Drex Valen saw her practically spring away like a cat that had just seen a cucumber.
"The Dark Knight?"
Gwen looked up and saw Drex Valen hovering silently in midair, clad in black armor. She let out a breath of relief.
Wait. Why didn't my spider sense react?
Gwen blinked in confusion.
What she did not know was that Drex Valen was even more puzzled than she was. If not for Black Queen informing him, he would never have known that a female Spider-Man had turned up in Queens.
A white spider suit. So this was Silk?
Could this universe be Earth-65? No, that did not quite fit. Most of what he had seen here matched movie plots and movie characters.
While Drex Valen was thinking about Gwen's origin, Gwen was thinking about why her spider sense had not gone off.
"Sorry. I didn't an to scare you," Drex said with an easy smile.
"Oh, it's fine. I just didn't notice you," Gwen replied, shaking her head.
She had a good impression of the Dark Knight. Her father, on the other hand, had plenty of bad things to say about him. According to him, Drex Valen was just putting on a show and wasn't a real hero.
If Drex Valen had heard that, he would probably have been speechless. The reason he did not rush around constantly was because he did not want to steal the police's work and damage their credibility. Otherwise, he could have left the armor to Black Queen, had it handle rescue operations, and moved far faster than any police force ever could.
Besides, Drex Valen was not only the Dark Knight. He was also a super genius so far beyond the world's standards that the rest of humanity barely counted as competition.
"Hello, Dark Knight. I'm Silk," Gwen said, extending her hand first.
Drex Valen took it. After they shook hands, Gwen answered his question.
"Yes. I'm looking for the criminal who shot an old man on the street. I want him to face justice."
Her voice was a little restrained, like she was standing in front of a teacher.
For a lot of people, or at least in their minds, Dark Knight Drex Valen was the first superhero. He had opened the door to a new era, much like Captain Arica had once done. The difference was that Captain Arica belonged to the past, while Drex Valen was the symbol of the present. All the other superheroes were only his juniors.
What if Drex Valen doesn't approve of ?
That was what Gwen was thinking.
"That little information is all you have?" Drex asked.
For a mont, he did not realize she was looking for the man who killed Ben. He assud it was just a routine case.
"I also have a sketch," Gwen said.
After thinking it over, she figured that if Drex was willing to help, he might find the criminal faster, so she took out the drawing Peter had given her.
Drex scanned it once. Black Queen identified the target almost imdiately.
"The man you are looking for is Flint Marko, but he is already in prison."
Drex Valen lifted his hand, and a projection appeared from his arm. It showed the video of Flint Marko being arrested and sent to prison.
Gwen was left with a look that said she had absolutely nothing to say.
Of course, since she was wearing a mask, Drex could not actually see her expression. He was not the kind of person who kept his x-ray vision running all the ti, staring through people out of habit.
My sleep.
Gwen almost whimpered.
She had spent several nights losing sleep over this, and the irregular schedule had already started wrecking her skin. She was even getting breakouts, and all that sacrifice had led to this: the person she had been hunting was already behind bars.
"Next ti, you can keep an eye on the news," Drex said. "And if you do not have ti for that, you can download Spiderweb. It sends news notifications."
It was a quick bit of advertising, but Spiderweb's user base had already climbed to two billion. It had completely crushed Twitter and YouTube, and it was now closing in on Facebook's monthly active users.
And those two billion users were not just in the United States. They were spread all over the world. In the regions with heavier internet restrictions, though, it was unavailable.
Spiderweb also supported Hindi, and with its advanced, convenient features, its growth had been explosive.
Drex had copied a TX-style model and launched Blade Accounts. One account worked across every Blade Technology Industrial network product, including Spiderweb paynts, which connected directly to Blade Bank and made mobile paynts possible before anyone else had really pulled it off.
That was a big reason Spiderweb's user numbers had risen so fast. Registering a Blade Account cost ten dollars, which also kept the bots and sock puppets under control.
Of course, if soone really wanted to, they could probably still get plenty of accounts through under the table.
"I do use Spiderweb," Gwen said awkwardly. "I just didn't notice it."
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube had all tried counterasures, but they were missing far too many features compared to Spiderweb. Even when they tried poaching people from Blade Technology Industrial, nobody wanted to leave.
Which was obvious. One look was enough to tell that Blade Technology Industrial had a future full of limitless potential. Why would anyone jump ship to join a bunch of fading relics headed for the grave?
Drex nodded and did not think much of it. After all, Spiderweb was mainly a communication platform. News and the like were not usually sothing young people paid close attention to unless it was a major story.
"Oh, right, Mr. Hiss, I actually have a lot of questions about superheroes. Would it be all right if I asked you so?"
Now that she knew the criminal was already in prison, Gwen felt a weight lift from her chest. She let out a slow breath, then started thinking about sothing else entirely.
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