(looks around) Come on, where is everyone? Sometimes I wonder why I even bother, but then my Muse visits me in a dream and tells me why. Remember, whether old or new, read and review! Questions, comments, compliments, (constructive) criticism...bring it on! Tell your friends! Bookmark my profile!

Chapter 4: What Happened At School

Octavia Jones was standing on top of a speeding subway train. She didn't know how she got there, and the speed of the train was such that she almost stumbled until the pincer of one lower tentacle sank down and steadied her.

She looked up. Standing in front of her, swaying with superb balance, was a tall, slender but muscular man in a garish red and blue suit accented with a black webbing pattern. Her archenemy.

I need to get him off my heels, Octavia thought. Fighting him is only going to waste time—time better spent rebuilding my experiment.

A sudden idea came to her. One of Octavia's tentacles snaked down to the engineer's compartment.

Yes! I'll sabotage the brakes. The bug will be forced to divert his attention to saving the civilians. After he is exhausted from stopping the train, I can defeat him easily. After I haul him off, that jellyfish Osborn Junior will have to keep his end of the bargain. The tritium is all I need…

The tentacles understood exactly what she wanted to do. What she had to do to prove herself as a scientist. To prove to herself and everyone else she wasn't a failure…

She threw the engineer out the window. Her tentacle, her child, ripped the control panel out. She faced her archenemy.

She smiled.

"I believe you've got a train to catch…"

"Another nightmare, Octavia?"

She sat up in bed. Jordan was standing there with a glass of milk. "The same one."

"The train one? Same one you had since after you were kidnapped by—"

"Yeah. The same one."

"At least you know what it means." Jordan yawned. "In all the stories I've read about clones, a clone has all the original's memories."

Octavia was cross. "I don't exactly have his memories."

"The hell you don't," Jordan said placidly. "You're remembering his battles—unconsciously. Your conscious mind blocks all those memories out, but then you bring them up in your dreams."

"I'd feel much more comfortable if you said it was a metaphor."

"Okay, it's a metaphor. Now go back to sleep."

Just before she went back to sleep, Octavia noticed a strange sensation in her muscles. They felt rather tingly, but otherwise it was not unpleasant. Blocking the sensations out, she went back to sleep.

The alarm clock sounded off with a loud beep. "Octavia! School time!"

"Shit. Is it Monday already?"

"Yep."

Octavia shuffled off to the bathroom, clothes, toothbrush, and hairbrush in hand. She ran off after getting dressed. "Jordan, do you notice anything different?"

"Your shirt is a little tighter around the shoulders, arms, and back, you look a little more buff, but nothing I'd worry about. You've been working out—and you're cloned from a guy, remember?"

Octavia thought nothing more of it…until lunch that day. Octavia sat with Jordan and Daisy Gatsby as usual, chugging down her small carton of milk.

"Dude," Daisy piped up, "that's the fifth milk carton you've taken so far."

Octavia paused the chugging. "That's because I swear they put Habanero peppers in the mystery meat chili."

Daisy cautiously took a nibble of her mystery meat chili. "It's not that spicy."

"I think your appetite's just gone through the roof," Jordan added. "I mean, how else can I explain you getting up at six o'clock—to cook yourself an eight-egg omelet?"

Octavia was cross. "I'm a growing girl. And it was seven eggs."

"I'm jealous," said Daisy. "I gain weight just listening to dinner music. And Octavia's probably cleaning out Jordan's refrigerator and she doesn't gain an ounce."

"I'm getting some more milk." Octavia rose from the table.

The lunch lady shouted up at Octavia. "No! Whaddya think this is, Hometown Buffet!"

Octavia was obliged to trudge to the vending machine. She slipped a dollar bill in. She waited and waited, but the coke didn't come out.

This sort of thing happened every second or third time someone used the machine. All one had to do was whack the machine very firmly with a closed fist in a certain spot, and the can of coke popped out. Every student at Shylock High School knew that.

So when Octavia's coke didn't come out the chute, that is exactly what she did, same as before. Maybe Octavia was still smarting over Nancy Melitta dismissing her as her lab rat. Maybe she was still frustrated over Anthony putting her secret origins out all over the internet for every nutcase to read. Maybe she just didn't realize what had happened to her last night. At any rate, whatever the reason, Octavia hit the machine a little harder than usual.

Everyone in the cafeteria heard what happened next.

Ka-pow!

The noise was like an explosion, echoing through the cafeteria. Some kids hit the floor, hiding under tables, thinking that another Columbine was coming. They thought the sound was a gunshot, or a wall caving in.

It was neither. The sound, of course, was that of Octavia's fist going straight through the vending machine!