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Chapter 10: Linking (part 1)

Spidey flipped through the air and swung down with her legs outstretched in front of her. Her feet slammed into the chest of a hood, who fell to the ground. Momentum carried Spidey on and she landed a few feet away. Immediately she jumped and flipped as her spider-sense warned her of someone rushing her from behind. She boxed the man's ears as she came down from her flip, and watched him hit the ground as well. She looked around, ready to move. Now, where had the third guy got to?

She heard a scream from around the corner. Quickly she shot a line of web and swung around and up onto the side of the building, where she saw the guy with the woman he'd dragged away. He now had one arm around her throat and his other hand held a gun. "I'll shoot!" he was saying, wildly waving the gun around in the air - he hadn't seen Spidey yet. "I'm warnin' ya!"

'Thwip!' A splodge of webbing covered the guy's gun and hand in one sticky mass. "Oopsy," muttered Spidey under her breath. Aloud she said "Yech! What'd you have that gun loaded with - glue?" In the moment while the guy was distracted, she rapidly leapt down, shot some web at his lower legs as she bounced past him and then gave a sharp tug on the web line. The thug involuntary let go his victim as his arms flew up, his feet shot out from under him and his chin connected with concrete. More webbing materialised and glued his feet and hands to the ground.

Spidey turned to the woman who was standing wide-eyed with her hands to her mouth. "Tsk, see what happens when small boys play with glue guns?"

"You… saved my life! O thank-you!" She seemed about to throw herself into Spidey's arms.

Spidey very quickly leapt up the wall next to her. "No thanks necessary - all part of the service from your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man!" and she rapidly crawled up the wall to the second story ledge, flung out a web-line and was off, watched by the woman below.

Spidey travelled a few blocks, then stopped by the darkened glass observatory of the Paramount Building. She liked that a lot of the older buildings were of brick - they made the city seem warm somehow, and you could tell this was not an earthquake-prone area. The lights of the city glittered above and about her as she sat on an outcrop above one of the clock faces, and mused.

Well, the video game scenario was definitely helping, and the humour too. But that last bit back there - she was getting better with the web shooters, but she really should have whipped that gun away before he knew what had happened. She was lucky that woman didn't get hurt. Practise; a spider has got to spin her web accurately. She sat upright in the reflected points of light and spun.

Some time later, Spidey was playing cat's-cradle with gossamer fine strands of web.

"And there's the Cup-and-saucer," she murmured as she manipulated the faintly glistening strands. She held her hands straight out in front and admired her handiwork for a moment; then suddenly pulled her hands wide apart and flicked the web away. Well now. She got up. Time for a little fine target shooting.

Swinging down, she looked for a deserted alleyway with a full rubbish skip. Not hard. Perched on the portico above the back entrance to a restaurant, she concentrated on 'picking up' the rubbish that was littering the ground beside the skip. Practise, and a community service at the same time! She very quickly figured out the exact fine adjustment needed to snare small objects. Now, if only she could actually snare them. Several near misses sent cans clattering across the concrete. The narrow alley magnified the sound - Spidey wondered if you got many stray cats in mid Manhattan.

Someone was still in the kitchen of the restaurant, even as late in the morning as it was. The back door opened and a colourful cursing began, which stopped abruptly as the worker saw the strands of web surrounding the skip.

"What the?" he began and looked up. But by that time Spidey was well away.

Stopping only to rescue some poor drunk sod who was about to stagger onto the Avenue of the Americas, busy even at this time of the night, Spidey headed back to the apartment. She landed lightly outside the open window, and just as lightly leapt inside. Tired now, Erica stripped out of the Spidey-suit and into an old shirt of Pete's she was using as a night-shirt. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she thought 'this old couch is really comfy…' as she lay down, and was instantly asleep.

…………………………………………..

What seemed like only a short time later, it was daylight and Peter was in the kitchen making coffee. The shrill whistle of the kettle boiling had woken her up. She opened her good eye to look at the time: it was only a short time later - three hours at the most since she had gone to bed. A good three hours though - she'd had a sleep as deep as black velvet. She sat up, yawning. Peter grinned at her. "Morning, sleepyhead!"

Erica grinned back, wincing a little as she stretched her swollen lip, "Morning Murray."

"How'd you go last night?"

Erica watched Peter fill his percolator, and then pour boiling water in a cup for her. "Boy, I could do with a cuppa tea!" She stood up before she answered Peter's question. "I think I've nailed it. I'm just going to have a quick shower and get dressed - I'll tell you how it went over breakfast."

Erica sat across from Peter at the little table. "…that fight was close contact - I could smell them - don't some people wash? There were five of them, and I guess they figured together they ought to be a match for Spider-Man. They were wrong, but still, it was a hard fight for me - as you see, I didn't escape completely unscathed. I'm not used to fighting. I think I was half consciously trying to work out how to avoid them, instead of relying on spider-sense and reflexes. I was scared, but sort of excited too, eh? That must have been the adrenaline. But it wasn't exciting at all when I'd finished. There was blood… and one guy was so still - I thought I'd killed him! I hadn't, but he was so… unconscious…" Erica sighed and sipped some of her tea. The last guy of the group had had a leering shark tattooed above his right eye - with his eyebrow shaved off to highlight it. Sharky had been particularly vicious, he knew how to fight and he had a version of a knuckle-duster set with shark's teeth that he slashed at her. Once she stopped thinking, spider-sense and reflexes had saved her from injury each time, but she'd had to wait until she had an opening to his chin with a double fisted punch before she been able to seriously stop him. Someone had called the police; she heard their sirens getting nearer above the din of the traffic. A small crowd had also gathered, watching the fight from a safe distance. When she had downed Sharky, they gave a cheer. It was only some free entertainment for most of them. She kept moving, didn't hang around: it might have become obvious she wasn't really Spider-Man.

Erica veered the subject onto a slightly different course. "I also saved this really pissed bloke from becoming road kill on 6th."

"What was he angry about?"

"Eh? He wasn't angry, just extremely drunk."

"You said he was pissed!"

"He was!"

"Angry!"

"Drunk!" Pissed. Not pissed off!" Erica giggled, "Kiwi idiom."

"Kiwi idiot!" Peter laughed.

It felt good to laugh with a friend. Erica finished off her breakfast; Peter had already eaten his while she was yakking. "Hey, I've got a couple of questions to ask you." Erica got up and fetched her notes from her backpack, brought them back to the table.

Peter was curious. "What are they?"

"When I left you alone yesterday afternoon, I went to the Bugle and did some research. I want to know who could be behind the 'alter-ray'. The Bugle I read mentioned a 'reliable source' for the story of you out of action - you said yourself there were no witnesses. So who knew? Someone who had hired the villain. One of your enemies."

"Well, that sounds reasonable, but I don't see where that leads us."

"But wait…there's more! I asked Robbie who the reliable source was."

"You what?!"

"Don't worry, I was subtle. He indulged the antipodean tourist, so even though he named no names, he did tell me the other stories this particular reliable source contributed to. I looked them up - here they are - I want you to see if there's any link between them. I couldn't, but I wasn't there."

Peter took the printouts and notes and read them through. "Falling off a building…. Well, I'd caught a sudden virus that morning, ya know, like one of those 24 hour flu bugs. Man, it felt as if my skin was on fire, my nerve endings all creepy and sensitive as well. Lucky for me it only lasted a few hours."

"What happened when you fell?"

"Oh that - I fell a number of stories, but recovered and swung away. I guess there were people about who may have seen me fall, though I didn't notice any." He looked again at the notes. "Hmmm, Arcade. Anyone can hire him. And if it involved me, he'd be quite happy - another one who feels he has a score to settle. No witnesses to that; another case of 'hire the kooky villains to settle Spider-Man's hash.'"

"What about the medical clinic?"

A fleeting reflection of annoyance crossed Peter's face. "There was something suspicious going on there - my spider sense was tingling like crazy. The people doing the 'delivering' where not your normal types, even if they were wearing overalls and were carrying cooling units. Also, they were taking them into the van, not out. But the owner of the clinic kicked up a fuss when the police arrived, and insisted that they were legitimate. There was nothing I could do about it."

"And the last one?"

Peter almost ground his teeth. "That was a set up. I'd had a message for me to meet a contact at that address - they said they had some information for me about Dr. Otto Octavius and to meet them inside on the 4th floor. I was pretty cautious but nothing alerted me to anything wrong, so I opened a window and went in."

"And?"

"And…nobody. No-one there. I had a brief search around, but it seemed to be one of those office spaces for hire, empty, no papers or stuff about."

"Could we find out who rented the space at that time?"

"I thought about that, but inquiries showed that the company that leased the offices had been burgled and their key cabinet taken only the day before. That sort of thing always seems to happen to me," he added.

"Who owns the Moroney Clinic, what sort of clinic is it? Do you know?"

"Look at your notes again. It's run by a Dr. Whithead who's a specialist in disorders of the nervous system - specifically he treats coma patients - has a private hospital for them attached to his clinic."

Erica had taken a pencil and started writing some more notes while Peter was talking. "I dunno, not much in the way of links at all besides the idea there must be someone or maybe even a group behind them. The only one mentioned was Dr. Octavius, but that seems too straightforward and easy." She paused, tapping the end of the pencil against her lips as she thought. "Hmmm. Why would someone want to give you information on Dr. Octavius?"

"Well, he's not a medical doctor, so he can't be connected to the clinic. He's a…"

Erica was about to interrupt, to say she knew what and who he was, but remembered that she hadn't told Peter the full extent of her knowledge of Spider-Man. It was a strange enough situation without adding more to the mix, though she suspected that Peter would take it in his stride - after all, he had seen and heard more that was a lot stranger. Still, she was in some ways relieved to know as much as she did; she was sure it helped her come to grips with the whole thing.

So, Erica kept her mouth shut.

"…PhD in nuclear biology," Peter went on, "He had an…unfortunate accident involving nuclear radiation and some waldos he was working with - they got fused to his body - and his mind. In fact, his nervous system. Eventually he was able to have surgery to remove them, but he can still control them with his mind. Perhaps there is a link - tenuous, but… what if Doc Ock is seeing Dr Whithead in connection with his extra arms? Not likely, but you never know…"

"Do you think that's what someone was going to tell you? I don't see why."

"Some people just like to make trouble…" Peter drifted off and looked rather sad as he said this: Erica knew he hadn't had an easy time of it - who was she kidding - cliched understatement. But clichés were easy when you were trying hard to build an interface between comics, video games and reality. She suspected wryly that if she were the same age as her nephew it would be easier…

She had been doodling as she thought, in the small silence that had ensued after Peter's last statement. Peter was still silent. Erica could tell he was thinking of past encounters. She looked down at the piece of paper; she had subconsciously drawn a spider's web, with the intersecting points little buildings and figures. And who was at the centre of the web? Doc Ock.

"I reckon…" she said thoughtfully, still staring at her drawing, trying to snatch at her vaguely formulated ideas and give them solidity, "I think perhaps… you may be right… Dr Octavius could be at the centre of all this - he could be the 'reliable source' phoning in. Don't know why I think this - one mention of him is a slim base to build a theory out of - but, I dunno… there's something that gels…" Erica didn't want to elaborate.

Peter looked up. "You think so?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Well, we could at least check it out. It's a theory to fit the facts we've got - we can only go by that. What do scientists do when they come up with a theory?"

"Try to disprove it."

Exactly. We've got to disprove this theory before we can come up with another one. Maybe we'll find some more facts along the way. I've got no idea why Dr. Octopus would cook up such a convoluted story, just to get you out of the way - but it must mean he's up to something if he did."

"But what?" Peter got up and went to the door. "I'll be back in a sec - I'll go get the papers. I can usually scrounge an old ish or two too," he added with a grin. "I've been sweet-talking the corner newsagent. Ciao!" He banged the door carelessly behind him as he left, and Erica could hear him running down the stairs. She took the breakfast dishes to the kitchen and thought some more about her theory while she washed up. O.K., Dr Ock could have hired Arcade, 'Ray-man'. He could have set up the break-in and be visiting the Clinic, but how did Spider-Man falling off a wall fit in? Gah.

Looking around the lounge, Erica spied her backpack. She went and picked it up and walked into the bathroom. She'd bought a few toiletries for herself but didn't have the chance yesterday to unpack them from her bag. She ran her tongue over her furry teeth - she really needed to clean them. The little bottles of shampoo and conditioner she'd snaffled from her hotel room were virtually finished. Besides, the stuff in them was pretty awful - it made her hair even more lank, and the bits that tended to stick out, stuck out even more. She knew she wasn't the most polished woman around. Mary-Jane yesterday looked so smooth and poised - and she knew she herself not only felt, but looked hot, sweaty and dishevelled. She spat out toothpaste with difficulty around her swollen lip, and sighed. Well, that was life.

She didn't care whether she was beautiful, whether she was poised or polished. After last night it didn't matter. None of it did. She had found a new confidence in herself - if she could do the best with her abilities - make the most of her situation, surely that was all that mattered. If it meant using all her abilities, her natural ones as well as the spider-given, then she had to accept that. She passed a hand over her face. Amazing what having clean teeth did! Erica set out the rest of her purchases in a little huddle together on the glass shelf, apart from Peter's stuff, and left the bathroom.

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Next: Linking (part 2)