I'm only going to say this once: I still don't own Doc Ock, Spider-Man, or any other Marvel character. I'm also pretty sure no money isn't being made off my stories. If there was, I wouldn't have to beg and plead with my parents to get the twelve dollars I need for that Spectacular Spider-Man "Countdown" collection I want from the B Dalton's. However, Octavia, Carlyle, Daisy, and Jordan are mine!

Over to the reviewers, shall we?

To K9: Well, as my father says, denial is not a river in Egypt!

To Pheonix Master: Hey, you'd have a hard time believing that your best friend was a clone at first, too.

To Crys Skywalker: Yes, there are variables the computer cannot predict. This will become evident in the following chapters...

To Yuna: Of course I take you seriously. I take all my reviewers seriously, even my critics. You have raised a valid andexcellent point in your review. But as someone said(I think it was Yogi Berra), it ain't over until it's over, and this story ain't over yet. Still, I can't imagine what kind of power a dimunitive Northern California college student who likes to write might have...

Now, to the story! As you can see by the chapter title below, this is the moment you've all been waiting for. Remember, whether old or new, read and review!

Chapter 10: Confronted the Original

"The clone has left the Gatsby residence."

"Let me guess: she will go to the witness next?"

"Jordan Nicholas is still first on the list."

"Where are the clone's current coordinates?"

"She is still in the New York City area. Making her way downtown, north of the Venice suburb."

"Good. Let's keep watching her. As soon as she relaxes her guard, we bring her in for further testing. I want to see what those actuators can do."

"Wait! I just got a reading off the computer! Jordan Nicholas has placed a call to the National Enquirer."

"The Enquirer! That rag isn't worthy to be used for toilet paper."

"I may have underestimated Jordan's intelligence. She must have realized that any mainstream media outlet would be watched."

"Underestimated? For God's sakes, she's a high school student, not Superwoman."

"At any rate, if Nicholas blows the operation wide open, I'm never telling another dumb blonde joke again."

"She won't get the chance. I want Jordan Nicholas disposed of, do you hear?"

Jordan was walking to school with Daisy. She was taking a different route now; walking her old route reminded her too much of Octavia.

"I know she must be dead by now," Jordan whispered. "But in my heart I know she's still alive…somehow. What do you think, Daisy?"

Daisy's reply was icy. She felt guilty for turning Octavia out. "She's still alive…somewhere. Maybe she escaped from those government agents and is out there, wandering, lost and alone."

Jordan stopped to stare at her friend. "And you know this how?"

Daisy burst into tears. "They did something to her, changed her…"

"Changed her how…ahhh!" Jordan shrieked.

A black car sped up the street until it was nearly parallel to Jordan and Daisy. The window rolled down, slightly. A handgun poked out the window, fired two shots.

Jordan fell to the ground, clutching her chest. She was bleeding profusely. "Daisy…did they kill me?"

"No, Jordan, don't die on me now!" Daisy shouted. "We have to find Octavia together, because you were right all along…"

Daisy dialed 911 on her cell phone.

The Director banged a fist on the slick black desk. "Damn your incompetence! Not only did you leave Nicholas alive to be taken to the hospital, but now we have another witness!"

"I assure you, I will not miss next time."

"One death we can cover up. The deaths of two perfectly healthy teenage girls are much harder. Any more witnesses, and we'll be up shit creek without the paddle!"

"Yes."

"Bring me the two girls dead, and the clone alive. Or you're going to find yourself unemployed. They told me you were one of the best agents around. You are a disappointment."

Octavia spotted a street vendor. Her stomach was growling. Those grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies seemed ages ago. She dug into her pocket, looking for some money. But what she found wasn't change.

It was a shiny round piece of metal, with a red light steadily blinking. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. She sent a mental command to a tentacle to crush it. The tentacle obliged. The tracking chip shattered in pieces.

Octavia looked up at the skyscraper. This was the headquarters of the leading (albeit Spider-man hating) tabloid The Daily Bugle. Like Jordan, she felt she had to tell someone…set the record straight somehow.

Octavia walked into the front door. At the receptionist's desk, a small brunette woman was eating a king size Twix bar and drinking a cherry soda.

"Breakfast of champions, huh?" Octavia greeted.

"And what would a scruffy looking little girl such as yourself want?" The receptionist looked up from her Twix bar.

"I'd like to see the publisher, J. Jonah Jameson."

The receptionist laughed. "Triple J's been dead for a year. Probably gave himself a heart attack or ulcer or something."

"So who's in charge now?" Octavia asked. "Who's the big kahuna?"

"Triple J's daughter, Janice Jameson, is the big boss now. Wish she'd gone into her brother's business. At least then she'd be ranting in orbit."

"Can I see her?"

"You got an appointment?"

Octavia scowled. "I believe these four made the appointment for me." The tentacles shot out of her back, the upper left popping open to reveal an eighteen-inch blade.

The receptionist fainted. Octavia let herself in.

"Where is the clone now?"

"The computer is unable to transmit a location."

"What! That can only mean the tracking chip was destroyed."

"Right. But that isn't the only means of tracking her. I can plug into every security camera, every phone line, every surveillance system, every computer in New York City."

"Then do so!"

Octavia looked at the nameplate on the door that read Janice Jean Jameson.

The aforementioned Miss Jameson, with all the brunette good looks of her brother John and all the attitude of her father, turned around and looked at her. "Who the hell are you? And what are you doing here?"

"My name is Octavia Jones," she said, "and I have a great story idea."

Janice's face lit up. "Is it about how Spider-man's a crook?"

"No, you've hashed that up a million times. But it is about a wide-ranging conspiracy, by our own government, to participate in an unethical experiment in which one of the most infamous supervillians of all time was cloned."

Janice mulled this over a bit. "Cloned supervillians? Government conspiracies? That's almost as good a story idea. Now, tell me everything."

"Where's the clone?"

"I'm sorry…it takes the computer a while to set up the monitoring process! It could take as long as two hours."

"Well, hurry up. The clone could do anything in two hours."

Janice began chuckling. "So you're claiming you're the clone of Doctor Octopus? I'm sorry, you've got something going there, but it's going to take more than a birthmark, trench coat, and a set of tentacles to convince me."

"What convinces me that Spider-man's a crook?"

"Look, honey, I'm not saying I don't believe you. But I'm a responsible journalist, you know, and I need evidence."

"Then perhaps you could tell me where the original Octopus is."

Janice chuckled again. And then she gave Octavia the address.

"Systems are up."

"And the clone?"

"Heading for the Asylum."

"The prison for the criminally insane?"

"Precisely."

Doctor Otto Octavius, Octopus no more, reclined on his bed, sketching and writing formulas in a thin green notebook. After his latest crime, he had been arrested and sent to the Asylum, the prison for the criminally insane. When he had first arrived, surgeons had forcibly removed his actuators and put them who knows where, probably to study. He now was only left with one long scar down his spine and an aching loneliness inside his head, an empty space where the four other voices had been.

He had been diagnosed by the shrinks with paranoid schizophrenia. The shrink had told him that he had delusions of grandeur, jealousy, and persecution (the latter by a certain spider-powered hero, of course); and that the voices of his tentacles were merely auditory hallucinations, actually unrealized, unconscious desires of his own mind.

Heh heh. He would show them. The doctors did not know that even though the tentacles were no longer attached, he could still control them. And he could still feel them in his mind. Or his "children" would come looking for him. At any rate, he was going to break out very, very soon.

The doctor's scheming was soon interrupted by the screech of his door being torn off the hinges.

Octavius blinked. A young girl, probably no more than thirteen or fourteen, was standing outside his door. She was wearing a brown trench coat, and she looked exactly like him.

The tentacles shot out of Octavia's back. "It's your fault," she said.

"Who are you?" Octavius asked.

"Don't you recognize me?" she asked, stepping closer. "I am you."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"You gave your DNA to them, didn't you?" Octavia whispered. "You wanted another one of you to carry on your criminal work, didn't you? You had yourself cloned…"

"I d-don't know what you're talking about…" Octavius muttered. And for the first time, he saw himself as others saw him.

Octavia's tentacle blade sprang open, preparing to make the mad scientist into calamari shish kebab. However, the doctor would live to see another day. His fright was enough for his own tentacles to break out of their basement storage container.

"What's going on with the clone? Where is she?"

"The computer indicates she's at the Asylum room 808."

"What is the significance of this?"

"Room 808 is occupied by the original subject."

"Oh shit." The Director began to pace up and down the office.

Octavius, still sitting on his bed, was amusedly watching Octavia struggling with his own set, who had jumped on her, defending their "father". Octavia, in desperation, smashed through the window. She'd had enough.

"If you're going to wear the tentacles, you might as well use them right," Octavius advised. "Meanwhile, I should thank you, young lady—for giving me the means to escape…" The doctor pulled up his shirt, clenching his fists as the tentacles reattached themselves to his back.

Doctor Octopus was back. And he was out the window.

And Octavia knew that this man was not a worthy one to obsess over.

"Both the original subject and the clone have left the hospital."