Chapter 13: Ockham's Razor

Octavia Jones was drowning.

She was slowly sinking into an ice-cold New York river, along with her greatest and first creation: a great fireball, a star, a tiny sun that burned with the fire of her passion for science.

That star was her dream. But to do the right thing, sometimes you have to be steady and give up the things you want the most, even if it was your greatest dream. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Her dream was about to destroy her city.

She had chosen to do the right thing, in the end. Even though those whose lives were saved would only remember her wrong choices. The ingrates.

And now, the right choice was drowning, dying along with her dream.

But there were others who did not want to die, entities that had a vested interest in keeping her alive.

Her tentacles were calling out to her now, as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Frightened as they were, they took action. The started madly paddling, bringing their master above water, dragging her towards the nearest patch of dry land.

But she was limp, her lungs full of water, her heartbeat faltering and faint. One of the tentacles, having once caught a rerun of Baywatch, had an idea. Its pincer gently rested on top of her chest, pumping gently so as to not crack her ribs while expelling the water from her lungs.

Octavia's eyes blinked open, and she started to hack and cough. The tentacles screeched with joy. Their master was alive! Alive! It did not matter to them that oxygen deprivation had damaged her brain, that Octavia Jones had been almost obliterated and only Doctor Octopus now remained…

Octavia's latest dream ended as Peter Parker shook her awake. "In the car, Octavia—" He gasped as his spidey sense sharply alerted him to a tentacle whipping him in the side.

Octavia shook her head out of its fog, slowly realizing that while the Spider-Man in her dream had hated her and injured her, the Spider-Man standing over her in waking wanted to protect and help her. She climbed out of the bed.

Melissa Breedlove gasped at the sight. Sure, it had been a long time since she'd divorced Anthony Nicholas—"irreconcilable differences," she'd claimed, as in the ideological differences between secret-conspiracy-obsessed Anthony and more optimistic Melissa—but she still loved him. He was, after all, the father of her children.

She kneeled down beside his body, tears filling his eyes. "Anthony, my sweetheart—!" Then she said something that would have never come out of her lips were he still alive.

"My god," she told her daughter and son, "He was right. He was right all along."

"How do you know where the Headquarters is?" Octavia asked, riding shotgun in Peter's car. "And why are we taking your car? Can't you swing from building to building on your spider web?"

"Don't give me lip," retorted Peter. "First question, I was detained and questioned there for my role in Operation Apollo. Second question, I can't swing quite as well as I used to and I have you to thank."

Octavia hid a smirk under her gloved hand, gratified that he still hurt enough to think twice about attacking her in the future. "Operation Apollo—?"

"When I went after your progenitor, whose first major experiment involved a miniature sun." Peter's tone of voice all but included a silent "duh!" at the end.

"I saw a miniature sun once," she said. "It was in a dream. I've been having very strange dreams lately. My best friend tells me that a clone has all the original's memories, and that they're in my subconscious mind."

"Tell me about them," Peter urged. "I certainly could tell you whether they're memories."

Her progenitor, Octavia realized, had not been overly forthcoming about his past. She had also wondered how he was still alive when everyone who had seen the movie knew he had drowned destroying the miniature sun. Parker, as Octavius' proclaimed superhero archenemy, was the next best link to her past.

"Mom! How can you say that now?" Morgan asked.

Jordan was just as incredulous. "Can Dad have one cosmic I told you so now?"

"I can't understand," Daisy Gatsby shook her head. "Why would they kill your dad? I thought they were only after Octavia—and her 'father'."

Dr. Payton Gatsby, Daisy's psychologist father, also shook his head. "Wait, just what are we talking about here?"

Melissa finally said, "Anthony sent me an email before he died. But the only thing that it said was 'They've finally found me. I love you, and if anything happens to me, be extremely suspicious.'"

"He found out they were hacking into his server," Jordan told her. "They had traced his location. He knew that Octavia's been living with us since her parents died."

"Octavia Jones?" Melissa asked. "Your friend who always wears the trench coat?" Her face hardened. "The one who stood up Morgan to meet up with another guy?"

It was then that Mack and Maryann Jackson, formerly Griffin, had let themselves in.

"My God, it's true," Maryann gasped. "This is what happened to my Henry. Everything Mack said is true. He's not the only one they were making."

"Making what?" Payton still didn't understand.

"We have to get out of here," Jordan said. "They know who we are and where we live. We have to go somewhere where I can explain it all to you."

"Wow," Peter said softly after Octavia had finished relating her dreams. "They are memories. I know. I was there."

"Why would I have his memories in the first place? And why can't I remember them when I'm awake? I only see them in my dreams."

"You are his clone, Octavia. You share all—save one gene—of your DNA with him. Studies have shown that identical twins share psychic links that even fraternal twins or ordinary siblings cannot. Besides, the body remembers. The cells remember. The soul remembers. What the hell is in your backpack, anyway?"

Octavia unzipped the backpack and showed him. It was the sonic nullifier she had stolen from the convention while she was her progenitor's hostage—saved, perhaps, for this day. There was also something else in there far more conventional and far less complex than the nullifier.

"For God's sake!" Peter exclaimed. "Don't let that go off in here!"

Cindy Cypher nervously paced the room. "I made every preparation! I have staked out the Nicholas house for weeks! I've trained the satellite security cameras on them, for Chrissakes!"

"Obviously, either the problem is with the equipment or with the manpower," the Director said evenly. "We both know those cameras are capable of catching a spider pick its nose under a rock. The only other option is that you have finally proven your incompetence. Perhaps sensitive, classified SDSI projects are still beyond your experience."

"You aren't going to fire me, are you? Because I know entirely too much about Operation Apollo and Projects Octopus and Scorpion, as well as Project Six, which I worked on with Fury's SHIELD."

"Of course you do. That's why we're not going to fire you." The Director's face spread in an expansive smile, an expression that could almost be mistaken for generosity or benevolence if you didn't know better. He pulled a pistol out of his suit jacket pocket. "We can't risk you going to the press, and we can't have you blackmailing us for job security."

He fired the gun.

Cypher staggered back, her face distorted in surprise and anger.

The Director gasped.

Cypher looked down, watched her black suit shimmer, watched the bullet miraculously pop out of her chest.

The Director never had time to fire another shot.

Cypher turned to Dr. Nancy Melitta, who was frozen in horror and revulsion at what her colleague had briefly become. "Deputy Director Melitta…you've just been promoted."

It was then that Melitta saw the silver lining in that particular cloud. "How…expected."