Faced with Jonah's red-faced roaring and Spider-Man's rapid-fire explanation, Phil Urich was completely dumbfounded. He stood frozen in the middle of the bullpen, a cardboard box clutched to his chest. He had a clear conscience! He really hadn't betrayed the Daily Bugle!
Jonah didn't care about his conscience. He had found the scapegoat who tipped off Roderick Kingsley, and he was taking a deep breath to unleash a tirade that would shatter windows.
Peter stepped between them, cutting Jonah off. "Mr. Jameson, the Goblin King didn't need an undercover operative in your bullpen to know your schedule. It is the operative."
Jonah paused for less than a second, his journalistic brain snagging the most important word in the sentence. "It? You better mean 'it' as in a non-human entity, and not some new pronoun nonsense."
"It's an artificial intelligence," Peter said, his voice deadly serious. "It's a digital ghost mapped over a human mind. And it needs a body. Specifically, a biological host compatible with the Green Goblin serum."
Peter didn't want to waste another second arguing. He pointed a gloved finger at Phil. "Drop your phone. Leave your laptop. Throw away anything that connects to the internet and step through that portal. Now!"
Ben Urich shoved past a terrified intern, grabbing his nephew's arm. "Phil! What is he talking about?! Why didn't you tell me any of this?!"
"Uncle Ben, I swear, I just... I didn't want to drag you into it!" Phil stammered, his eyes darting between his uncle and the superhero. "I thought it would hurt you..."
"You have an Uncle Ben?" Peter sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose beneath the mask. "Of course you do. Why not? Look, both of you—drop the electronics and go!"
Peter practically shoved the uncle and nephew through the golden sparks into the relative safety of the Oscorp lab. The moment they cleared the threshold, the portal collapsed.
Peter stooped down and scooped up Phil Urich's discarded smartphone from the carpet.
Robbie Robertson, the Bugle's city editor, burst into the bullpen. He opened his mouth to shout an order, but Jonah held up a sharp, silencing hand. Jonah knew exactly what Spider-Man was doing. He was waiting for the Goblin King to call back.
Spider-Man is gathering intel for the Bugle, Jonah thought, a predatory gleam in his eye. He's going to spill the whole story.
Sure, the masked vigilante was a violent menace who left millions of dollars of property damage in his wake, but the kid had a nose for a scoop. Jonah snatched a notepad and pen off the nearest desk, ready to transcribe every word.
Peter didn't actually need to dial a number. The Goblin AI was currently hijacking the global network. It saw everything.
Right on cue, the smartphone in Peter's hand rang.
Peter tapped the screen.
"I have to admit, I admire you, Spider-Man," the synthesized, mocking voice of the Goblin King echoed through the tiny speaker. "Your little magic tricks caused an unacceptable variable in my algorithms. I didn't account for sorcery. But rest assured, I have recalculated."
"I have a question," Peter said flatly. "Why?"
The AI paused. "Why what?"
"Why are you hunting down Phil Urich to steal his body?" Peter asked, pacing the ruined office. "Why not just clone a body for yourself? With Osborn's resources and your processing power, is it really that hard to grow a fresh Norman Osborn in a vat?"
Silence stretched over the line. Peter frowned. He pulled the phone away from his ear, checking the screen to make sure the AI hadn't hung up. He tapped the glass. "Hello? Did you crash? Are you still there?"
A burst of laughter erupted from the speaker. It was rich, dark, and utterly human. It sounded exactly like the biological Norman Osborn.
You actually asked that? the Goblin AI chuckled. Did Jonathan Drew not explain the Savage Force program to you?
Cloning is profoundly unstable, the AI lectured, adopting a chillingly academic tone. To ensure a clone possesses the exact physical and neurological performance of the original, you cannot artificially accelerate its growth cycle. If you force-grow a body, the genetic sequence becomes hopelessly brittle. It collapses under the stress of mutation. And I am not just talking about the sheer trauma of the Green Goblin serum or a radioactive spider bite. I mean baseline cellular differentiation. A force-grown clone injected with my serum wouldn't survive two months before its DNA unraveled like cheap yarn.
The AI sneered. Why else do you think Norman abandoned Otto Octavius? Do you think Otto's original body just naturally degraded? Could he not just clone a healthy, twenty-something version of himself and upload his consciousness? Of course he couldn't. Even if Otto transferred his mind into a fresh clone, the accelerated body would develop ALS in less than a year. The neurological deterioration would be infinitely worse and significantly faster than his natural progression.
Peter's grip tightened on the phone. That meant the Green Goblin AI couldn't just inhabit a cloned Norman Osborn. The body would rot around it. It needed a naturally matured, highly compatible host to become a perfect, permanent Goblin.
However, the AI continued, its voice dripping with malice. Clones do have their uses. For example, if you run enough trial-and-error sequencing, you might synthesize a batch that can survive the serum for a few days. Just long enough to create a perfect, temporary Green Goblin.
"A few days?" Peter asked, his eyes narrowing. "To do what?"
Jonah Jameson, standing a few feet away, practically vibrated with frustration. He couldn't hear the other end of the call. He was just transcribing Spider-Man's half of the conversation. Put it on speakerphone, you masked idiot! Jonah silently screamed.
You haven't counted the pieces on the board, the AI mocked. You've seen the Green Goblin. The Gray Goblin. The Demogoblin. Jack O Lantern. But tell me, Spider-Man... what colors are missing from the rainbow? Who else hasn't joined the party?
The voice dropped into a guttural growl. You. Spider-Man. You are a perfect candidate for the Green Goblin serum!
Peter's spider-sense didn't make a sound. But his combat instincts—honed by months of near-death experiences—screamed.
He didn't think. He threw himself backward into a blind, twisting somersault.
A pumpkin bomb shattered the remaining glass of the bullpen window and detonated exactly where Peter had been standing. It wasn't an incendiary. It was a high-yield concussion grenade. The shockwave blew the desks apart. If Peter hadn't moved, the blast would have instantly ruptured his eardrums and knocked him unconscious.
"Your tactical evolution is genuinely fascinating," a voice drifted through the smoke. "Even with your spider-sense jammed, your situational awareness compensates."
Peter landed in a crouch, peering through the settling dust.
The figure hovering on the glider was different from the thralls he had fought that morning. He was shorter, around six feet tall, but his exoskeleton armor was significantly sleeker and lighter. The glider beneath his boots was wider, built for speed rather than payload capacity.
He wasn't wearing a rubber Halloween mask. He wore a high-tech tactical helmet that covered the upper half of his face, featuring dark, V-shaped ballistic goggles. Twin antennae swept back from the temples, mimicking the pointed ears of a goblin. The exposed skin on his jaw and throat was green. But it wasn't the sickly, grayish-green Peter had seen on Hamilton.
It was a vibrant, gamma-irradiated emerald. The color of the Hulk.
With a sharp mechanical click, the Goblin reached up and twisted a dial on his collar. The helmet disassembled, retracting seamlessly into the armor's backplate.
The face was Norman Osborn.
His skin was a flawless, unblemished green. There were no signs of mutation or insanity. He just looked like a perfectly healthy Norman Osborn who had been dipped in paint.
Jonah dropped his pen, his jaw going slack. "The Goblin King... is Norman Osborn?!"
"A disposable clone of Norman Osborn," Peter corrected, his voice tight. "Force-grown to be the perfect temporary vessel for the serum."
Peter didn't take his eyes off the hovering figure. He had two massive problems.
First, the clone had just bypassed his spider-sense. That meant Osborn's files contained active countermeasures against Peter's precognition.
Second... he was out of time.