In a Manhattan back alley:

It hurt to breathe.  Not surprising when his own glider had driven 
itself through his lungs.  Damn that Parker.  So hard to take him by 
surprise.  It was like he had some kind of sixth sense  Parker was gone 
now.  Hadn't checked to make sure his opponent was entirely dead.  That 
was something the two of them had in common.  Sloppiness.  Their dance 
would have been finished a long time ago if either of them had just made 
sure of their defeated opponent. If they had, dear sweet Gwen would 
still be alive.  Laughter was unimaginable agony.

________________________________________________________________________


At Empire State University:

His daughter was dead.  His wife was dead.  And Gwendolyne Stacy who 
reminded him so much of both of them each was dead as well.  He had to 
accept that.  Or...did he?

"Professor Tomoe?"

"Yes, Mr. Serdar, I heard every word."  His glasses glinted at he looked 
at his assistant.  "We've succeeded in cloning a mammal.  Obviously 
before we start writing our Nobel Prize acceptance speeches, we're going 
to have to confirm our results.  We'll have to do it again.  Let me just 
get the cell sample I want to use..."

__________________________________________________________________________

At King's County Hospital Mortuary, Brooklyn:

When he pulled the sheet away from her face the medical examiner caught 
his breath.  The dead rarely retained anything a normal person would 
describe as beauty by the time he saw them.  The injuries or sickness 
that had claimed them would leave their mark and postmortem lividity 
would drain the blood from the exposed surfaces as they lay, while 
leaving the underside one big bruise.

But this girl brought thoughts of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty to 
mind.  Not a mark on her on her betrayed whatever had taken her life, 
and her face hadn't taken on that ghastly pallor.  He hastily reached 
out to double-check for a pulse at her throat as he asked the attendant 
who'd wheeled her gurney in, "When was she declared dead?"

The bland young man answered, "DOA as of 6:15 this morning.  They say 
Spider-Man killed her.  Threw her off the bridge."

"Impossible!  Rigor hasn't set in!  There's no lividity!  She can't have 
been dead more than half an hour and she's never been in the water.  You 
must have mixed Ms Stacey up with a more recent intake."

"Can't've.  All the others are guys."

"Go check again.  This one must have been delivered while you were 
taking a smoke break by someone who didn't want to wait around.  Now, 
Mr. Fielding!"

The young lout shrugged and left.

The M.E. relaxed a little as he detected no signs of a pulse.  He wasn't 
comfortable with living patients.  Or women for that matter.  But why 
weren't there any of the marks of death on her?

"Because she's only mostly dead." The voice of a young girl came out of 
nowhere.

The examiner jerked uncontrollably.  He didn't regard himself as an 
easily rattled man, and was accustomed to death, but when voices seem to 
come out of thin air in empty rooms in a morgue, even a rational man can 
feel a chill run down his spine.

"Which of course means that she's still slightly alive."  A small black 
cat with a crescent moon on its forehead hopped up on the examination 
table to look up at him. "Just as well.  If she was all dead...well...as 
Morganstern pointed out, the only thing we could do is look through her 
pockets for spare change.  A funny fellow, if only he didn't go on at 
such great length.  Someday someone should edit him down to just the 
good parts."

"You're...a talking cat--"  The M.E. shook his head.  He lived in a 
world where women claimed to be gods of thunder and spidermen fought 
goblins.  It wasn't that impossible.  "We'll need to get a crash cart--"

"No."  The cat's uncanny [colour?] eyes caught his.  "You have to forget 
about the cat and just start writing up your autopsy results.  She died 
when the vertebrae in her neck separated as a result of sudden 
deceleration.  How sad in such a pretty young girl.  The mortuary has of 
course already picked her up."

He turned away with a blank look in his eyes as the cat hopped back down 
and began to circle the examination table, a dome of light springing up 
behind her as she walked.  Each time she circled, the glowing barrier 
got brighter.  Then with a sudden flare, it, its maker, and the 
sheet-covered body on the table all disappeared.

"What was that?"  Fielding asked as he walked back in with the full 
paperwork for today's intake.

"What?"  The examiner looked up from the autopsy report he was writing, 
saw what Fielding held in his hand, and shook his head.  "I don't have 
time for all that.  Just get the next one."

Fielding looked confused and retreated once again.

__________________________________________________________________________

At the Jeffersonian Institute

Down in the sub-basement there was a very unusual statue.  It had been 
recovered in an Egyptian dig at a temple to an Egyptian moon-god but the 
style of the statue was nothing like anything Egyptian sculptors had 
carved.  It seemed more Greek than anything else but the dating of the 
temple conflicted with that.  It had been destroyed long before the 
Greeks adopted any similar style.  So it remained the Jeffersonian's 
little secret, kept in a dark storage space where it couldn't stir up 
any awkward questions about the authenticity of the rest of the 
artifacts who were one of the Institute's most prized exhibits.

Suddenly that space was lit as a dome of light appeared out of nowhere, 
flinging aside artifacts of dubious value as a body appeared in front of 
the god's statue, astrological sigil brightly glowing on its forehead, 
mirrored by an answering symbol on the statue's forehead.

"That's it," the cat gasped, weaving unsteadily as she continued to 
trace her circle around the body.  "I've done all the heavy lifting I 
intend to do today.  The rest is up to you, Khonshu."  She thumped over 
on her side, and began to lightly snore.











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