As the Master Planner's evil plot steams further ahead, we've got more mysteries for Spidey to wrap her head around--and of course, further information is revealed about the clones and the QoF reality Angelina! Stay tuned; you won't want to miss a bit of this story, told in the grand Marvel manner!

Chapter 4: Precious

“If God has a master plan

That only He understands

I hope that it's your eyes He's seeing through...”

Depeche Mode, “Precious”

night, watson residence

Mary Jane Watson dreams...and in her dreams, the ghost of her first archenemy gloats over the bedside of her aunt, his snow-white suit spattered with blood, one tentacle still brandishing the body of her beloved Peter...

And in her dreams, she looks down to see his blood on taloned hands covered in black goo.

In Greek mythology, the prince Orestes was haunted by the Furies, the terrible snake-haired goddesses whose role was to torment those who murdered—especially those who murdered a parent, as Orestes had murdered his mother, Clytemnestra. The Furies cared not that Orestes had only avenged the death of his father, Agamemnon, murdered by his mother and her adulterous lover. Nor did they haunt the dreams of Clytemnestra herself.

A common device of the ancient Greek dramatists was called the deus ex machina— the god out of the machine. A device was rigged to the stage, and the god would literally descend upon the stage to judge and absolve the hero.

So it was that in the Oresteia, it was Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, who intervened to judge our hero, convening the first jury, casting the deciding vote to still his waking nightmares. The Furies' old role in the lives of mortals faded away, and they were thereafter called the Eumenides. The Kindly Ones.

But Mary Jane Watson was no Orestes. The monster that haunted and accused her was no Fury, and Athena was nowhere in sight...

night, leeds residence

Edward Leeds dreams...and in his dreams, his girlfriend Mary Jane smiles and whispers, “Can you keep a secret, Ned?”

She tells him, “You know me as Mary Jane Watson, mild-mannered drama major—”

With superhuman agility, she leaps onto the wall, climbing up until she reaches the ceiling. Sticking to the ceiling from her feet, she dangles upside down, tearing off her hoodie to reveal a familiar red and blue uniform...

“—but in some circles, they call me Spider-Woman!”

He only gasps with horror, muttering “This explains everything...”

night, steven ditko memorial dormitory

Benjamin Reilly dreams...and in his dreams, he laughs and talks with a graceful woman with fiery red hair as he reads a worn issue of Scientific American and she sews together pieces of shimmering red and blue fabric...

night, brancale residence

Angelina Brancale dreams...and in her dreams, she is finally free from the pounds of flesh that had always imprisoned her inner stunner in that repulsive body she wore. In her dreams, she finally feels strong...strong enough to bench press a Buick, to bend steel in her bare hands.

In her dreams, she loves, and in her dreams, she is loved by the man she had secretly adored from afar. She clings to him, knowing she is the luckiest woman in the world to be loved by such a handsome, intelligent, witty, charming, and charismatic man as her beloved.

She is her beloved's, and her beloved is hers.

In her dreams, she gazes upon her beloved, not wanting to take a single second for granted. She cherishes his wild chestnut curls, his aquiline features, his large long-lashed brown eyes. She treasures the sight of his oversized sunglasses and every detail of the trenchcoat he wears. She memorizes every detail of the four robotic tentacle-like arms fused to her beloved, every electrode, from the harness to the three pincers at each end..

morning, stanley lieber dormitory

Mary Jane sat at her desk, plugging in her laptop. She didn't think it could hurt to do some investigating—to find out exactly who had just bought, in her opinion, the most dangerous machine this side of the atom bomb. She wondered if this lady was a shady character, working for a supervillain.

So, she sat at her desk, googling the name Angelina Brancale.

Quickly, she clicked the first link displayed on the search results and read the title of the website that listed Angelina Brancale as the webmaster.

“Ottophiles Anonymous: The definitive online source for all matters Octavian.”

Okay, she thought, looking at the site map. Pictures, news stories, the online newsletter and blog...

Halfheartedly and not fully realizing the full import of the website's name, she clicked the link that led to the site's mission statement.

And loading onto MJ's monitor at broadband speed was a large, full-color photo of Doctor Otto Octavius himself in all his glory!

MJ gasped, nearly dropping her taco as she read the “mission statement” praising that six-armed killer as not only a great scientist who had been working for the benefit of all humanity, but an iconoclast, a victim of persecution by judgemental society for his refusal to conform to the establishment—and as Miss Brancale had put it, his “unusual appearance.” Not only that, but Brancale was claiming that Spider-Woman's murder of him was part of a conspiracy by power companies and petroleum interests, because as a nuclear physicist, he represented a threat to their business.

On instinct, MJ reached for the mouse and clicked on the most recent journal entry. “I've recently bought Otto's tentacle harness off a craigslist ad. I have every reason to believe it's genuine, and I have no clue why the owner was so desperate to sell it off. Will upload pics soon.”

Angelina Brancale's website, in short, was a shrine to Doctor Octopus. Angelina had bought the tentacles for her collection of Ottophilic memorabilia. Mary Jane shook her head. What has this world come to, she thought. Every day I get called a criminal, a menace, a murderer, everything but a child of God. And then they have websites calling a real criminal, a real murderer, a great guy, a paragon of humanity who got a bad rap! Not to mention: what kind of girl in her right mind would love a villain?

One thought still nagged at her, even after all this time:

Maybe they're right about me. After all, I never was able to remember what happened when I was possessed by the symbiote.

midmorning, empire state university

Mary Jane Watson was never much good at science. Even though in high school she despised nerds, with the notable exception of Peter Parker, she now began to think her superhero career would be a bit easier if she was. It seemed like an unusual amount of her fellow superheroes were scientists, engineers, and inventors. She, who was a drama major and an aspiring actress when she wasn't a superhero, seemed to stick out like a straight guy on Project Runway.

So when she saw him in Biology, she thought she was daydreaming, that she had fallen asleep.

But he turned to face her, and Mary Jane attempted to pinch herself wake. Ensuring she wasn't asleep and only haunted by her dark hallucinations, her eyes widened, not daring to believe what she saw.

He swiftly moved to the chair next to hers, shily smiling. “Did I do anything wrong?”

She shook her head. “I just thought I recognized someone.”

“By the look on your face, he must have been a ghost!”

“I guess you could call it that,” she said.

“You know, when I first saw you, I did a double-take too,” he said. “You looked like—a girl I once knew.”

She laughed. “Maybe I am a girl you once knew. When I was young and stupid—I was young and stupid!”

Benjamin Reilly does not love Mary Jane. But neither does he hate her. It was nothing personal, after all. Benjamin did not know why the Master Planner was so interested in this ordinary drama major. Nor did he care; the Master Planner never shared information with him. All he knew or cared to know was that the Master Planner wanted this girl watched very carefully, and that he was to extract certain vital information from her. He is only obeying years of programming that started before he was ever born, his raison d'etre: to unquestionably obey all orders the Master Planner may give him, no matter what they are. And as only expected, he will retrieve the information his master needs, as ordered to.

afternoon, brancale residence

Angelina Brancale, erstwhile video store clerk, steps back from her bed, holding up her digital camera and hardly believing her immense good fortune. “They're never going to believe this,” she mutters. “I finally own them. These tentacles...he's touched them. He's worn them.”

The harness sits on her bed, tentacles limply arranged around the corset. Finally framing the picture just right for this momentous occasion, Angelina presses the button.

Steps back. Looks at the preview screen. Decides to delete the picture. Adjusts the lighting, zooms in, snaps another picture. Satisfied with the results, she plugs a cable into her computer's USB port and downloads the pictures onto her website.

But today, her hobby is interrupted by a knock at the door. Angelina shook her head. Nobody ever came to visit her. Not even salesmen, or Jehovah's Witnesses. She slowly walks to the door, opens it a crack, and barely manages being crushed by the door when the visitor throws it open with one hand, in a burst of superhuman strength.

Angelina recognizes the visitor from the news reports. The visitor has short red hair, dressed in a red uniform emblazoned with a golden spider and matching full face mask.

“Spider-Woman!” she breathed.

“I believe you currently have something not rightfully yours.” From the front door of Angelina's apartment, the Spider-Woman can see the bedroom, with the famous tentacles still perched on the bed; the Spider-Woman points to the harness.

Angelina gasps. She must have seen my website! She killed Otto—now she's after me!

The Spider-Woman known as Jessie has nothing personal against Angelina. Angelina is, after all, only yet another nonentity in a city teeming with nonentities. Jessie did not know what the Master Planner wanted with Doctor Octopus' tentacles. Nor did she care. All she knew or cared to know that the Master Planner wanted them. She is only obeying years of programming, her chief imperative, her raison d'etre: to unquestionably obey the orders of the Master Planner. And as only expected, she will retrieve them, as ordered to.

With one spider-strong chop to the neck, Angelina falls, and finally gets her wish: to be with her beloved...

evening, long island

For twelve years, FedEx driver named Doug has followed the exact same delivery route through New York City. He has just started his shift, taking over a truck bearing precious cargo express-shipped all the way from California Polytechnical Institute to Phoebus General Hospital in Manhattan—and according to the workplace grapevine, on a special order from Reed Richards himself.

Bored with his seemingly endless routine, our friend Doug sometimes thinks that he'd do almost anything to relieve his boredom. Today though, he's going to realize that boredom has certain merits.

Today, a tall, lean spider-lady with fiery red hair spilling over a full brown mask has jumped on the roof of the truck from above, the force of the landing nearly caving the roof in. Doug swerves, startled and unused to such a distraction.

The roof is ripped away with the sharp barbs on the ends of four hairy brown legs that sprout out of the small of her back. As she forces her way in, the creature grabs Doug by the collar with one spider-strong fist, pulling a wrinkled paper out of a pocket on her brown spandex costume. “According to the timetable the Master Planner gave me, you're two minutes late!”

All Doug could say to this—thing—was: “Hey, I ran into traffic on the bridge! Now what are you gonna do with me?”

From behind her mask, she can see the repulsion and naked panic in his eyes. The Spider-Woman known as Charlotte has nothing personal against him; he is, after all, only another nonentity in a city full of nonentities, of the common sort that would be enslaved when her master ruled the world. Charlotte does not know exactly why the Master Planner wanted this very ordinary canister, or even what the canister contains. All she knows or cares to know is that the Master Planner wants it, and that the Master Planner has ordered her to retrieve it. Charlotte is only obeying years of programming, her purpose for treading this earth, her raison d'etre: to unquestionably carry out any orders the Master Planner may give her. And as only expected, she will retrieve the canister and bring it to the compound, as ordered to.

Charlotte rips her way into the cargo hold, tearing metal with bare hands as if it were mere paper. After shaking each box in turn and finding what the Master Planner had wanted, she simply snatches the box containing the canister.

Then, as Doug is simply a nonentity, she disposes of him.

evening, phoebus general hospital

Mary Jane rushes into the laboratory, bursting in on Dr. Blake watching the television bracketed above Anna's hospital bed. “Dr. Blake! They told me the shipment of ISO-36 was due to arrive about now—”

Blake interrupts her, pointing at the screen. “Was. The shipment was intercepted and stolen. They're playing the live footage now.”

MJ gasped as the six-legged false Spider-Woman ripped apart the FedEx truck and hurled the driver into a nearby wall. She looked like she knew what she was after, too: she specifically picked out the box containing her aunt's last hope, and swung away from the scene on a strand of spiderweb.

Mary Jane's face hardened as she looked upon the crumpled, smoking ruins of what was once a perfectly good delivery truck. That was total overkill. She did that just to display her power. Well, I'll show her power. She wouldn't know true power if it poked its head out of the grass and bit her in the ass.

She swiftly stalked to the door, preparing to change again. Dr. Blake called after her.

“Where are you going, Miss Watson?”

“I'm going to get that canister back, Dr. Blake. No matter what it takes.”

“But how do you plan to do that?”

I'm wondering the same thing, Blake. And the only clue I have is the name of someone called The Master Planner...