Free Spiderman 3 by Peter David

as Too Much Coffee Boy since most of his enthusiasm was attributed to an excess of caffeine. Curiously, Donnie didn't actually drink coffee, but that did nothing to dissuade the nickname.
    "You mean really accomplish total demolecularization?" asked Chafin. He shrugged. "Does it matter?"
    "Well, of…" Donnie looked surprised and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Of course it matters. I mean… total demolecularization… it's…"
    "They'll weaponize it," Michel said sourly. "Just you wait."
    "They keep saying it's going to be just for molecular research," Donnie protested, but he didn't sound entirely convinced.
    "They can keep saying a Big Mac is filet mignon, but it's still gonna taste like a Big Mac," a fourth scientist, Sean O'Shea, commented. He was walking into the lab and heard the tail end of the conversation. Tall and lean, he filled the room with his presence and said with quiet authority, "Gentlemen, ours is not to question why, and so forth and so on, you know the drill. Let's get our baby up and running, shall we?"
    He always referred to the project as "our baby." Chafin suspected it was because he was more comfortable calling it that than "our future weapon of mass destruction."
    Giving in to the inevitable, Chafin propelled his wheeled chair across to his station with impressive agility, sliding across the floor like an accomplished skateboarder. "You heard the man," Chafin called out. "Let's get ready to roll."
    His love for his job had not increased.
    Flint Marko felt his freedom slipping through his fingers like sand.
    For a brief time… a wonderful time… Marko had been certain that he had lost his pursuers. He was quickly disabused of the notion, however, as he heard the sounds of barking dogs in the distance.
    Damned police. Damned lawmakers. Why couldn't they leave him the hell alone? Why did they insist on pigeonholing him into the role of the bad guy? Why couldn't they see shades of gray in their black-and-white world of cops and robbers? It was like some big kids' game to them, and he was the prize.
    He had eluded them sufficiently to get out of New York, jacking a car and driving into one of the more remote areas of the New Jersey marshlands. But he'd had to fill up the tank. While the pump was filling the car, Marko had gone to the bathroom, and when he came out, it was just his crappy luck that a cop car had likewise chosen that exact moment to pull in to gas up. The instant that the cop in the passenger's seat glanced Marko's way, he knew he'd been made. He hadn't even bothered to go back to the car. He'd turned right around and bolted for the back of the service station. The howling protest of the cop car's siren assured Marko that he'd been absolutely right.
    The back of the service area opened onto a steep dropoff, which, in turn, led into a heavily wooded area. Marko vaulted over the low mesh fence that lined the perimeter of the service area and rolled down into the brush. By the time the cops managed to get to the top of the hill, he was already sprinting into the woods.
    "Police! Stop where you are!" one of them shouted, and a warning shot snapped a branch off a tree just to his right. He ignored it. Instead he vanished into the concealing forest and ran headlong without the slightest care as to which way he was going or where he was going to end up. The only thing that mattered was that he got as far away from them as possible.
    The ground had slowly become boggier, and as the trees thinned out, the grass got taller. He was no longer able to run with assurance; instead every step felt like a tough slog. There was a full moon, thank God, but every time it went behind the clouds, he found himself tripping and sprawling over random branches, stones, and depressions in the ground that seemed to be there purely to make him fall.
    A gentle wind blew into his face, and only when he heard the sounds of the barking dogs behind him did he realize he'd had yet another piece of