Parallel Lines
Chapter One
"Kids, get up or you're going to be late for school!" Dr. Jeffery May yelled up the stairs at his two children. He received a muffled shout in response and returned to fixing sandwiches for their lunches.
Dr. May was a middle-aged man whose short brown hair had begun to grey around his temples. He was over six feet tall and still as skinny as he was when he was just a teenager. His face was handsome and kind looking from the laugh and smile lines that crinkled around the edges of his eyes and mouth. His eyes were a warm chocolate brown and hidden behind a pair of glasses with lenses so large that they hadn't been in style for decades.
The sound of feet pounding down the stairs preceded the appearance of two teenagers, a boy and a girl. The boy had short black hair and eyes so dark they seemed to match his hair. The girl's hair went down to the middle of her back and was the same dark brown that her eyes were. Both teens had pale skin, were of similar height, and had the same facial structure. It was fairly obvious from just a glance that they were twins.
Dr. May pinned them both with a look and said, "Devon, Evelyn, no running in the house."
"Sorry Dad," said Evelyn with a small smile as she pulled some glasses from the cabinet and the orange juice out of the fridge.
Devon just nodded and began making some toast.
Dr. May watched them work for a moment before speaking. "You two remember my friend Donald Davenport from down the street." Even though it wasn't really a question the twins nodded to show that they did.
"Yeah, he's that guy you met in college and work with sometimes that we still haven't met," said Devon.
Picking up where her brother had left off, Evelyn asked, "Why, are we finally going to meet him?"
Ignoring the tone that his son had used, Dr. May answered. "Possibly. He just got married to a single mom, so now he's got a stepson. A Leo Dooley I believe."
Not looking up from their breakfasts of juice and toast, the twins nodded together.
"We know him a little," started Devon.
"He's in a few of our classes," finished Evelyn.
"Well," said Dr. May, "now that Donald's got a kid of his own you will eventually meet him."
"When?" asked the twins in sync.
Placing the finished lunches on the counter, Dr. May said, "If I need to leave for a business meeting, you'll go to stay with the Davenports. If the Davenports need to do the same then Leo will come to stay with us." Pushing their lunches towards them he added, "You two should probably leave if you don't want to be late."
Quickly standing, the twins dumped their dirty dishes in the sink and grabbed their lunches.
Opening the door to the garage, Devon waved. "Bye Dad."
Following her brother, Evelyn said, "We'll see you when you get home tonight." She paused before closing the door behind her and added, "Dad, you're still wearing your glasses."
Dr. May blinked in surprise and crossed his eyes as he tried to focus on the glasses perched on his nose. "Oh, right, need my contacts. Thanks Evelyn."
His daughter just laughed as she closed the door. Dr. May just shook his head fondly as he listened to the sound of Devon's Lamborghini Jota peel out of the garage at what had to be an illegal speed.
"Well," he said to himself as he set the dishwasher to run, "guess I better get to work." He started to head for the garage himself but stopped abruptly and turned to go upstairs muttering to himself, "After I get my contacts."
Scene Change
The May twins pulled into the school parking lot with ten minutes to spare.
Stepping out of the car, Evelyn shook her head at her brother in amusement. 'One of these days we're going to get a speeding ticket and Dad will take away the car.'
Devon just grinned and tapped his index finger to the side of his temple.
Evelyn rolled her eyes. 'Come on, we don't want to be late and make all that speeding be for nothing.'
As they entered the school through a side door, Evelyn spotted the boy that their dad had been talking about.
'Look, there's Leo. Should we congratulate him on his mom's marriage?' questioned Evelyn. Before her brother could respond she tilted her head to the side in confusion and asked, 'Why is that girl hugging Ms. Sheppard?'
Devon followed her gaze. 'No idea, but Leo seems to know her.'
A loud noise drew the twins' attention to the other side of the hallway where a tall boy was holding the door to a girl's locker.
"Here you go little lady," said the boy as he handed the poor girl the door that was no longer attached to her locker like it was supposed to be.
"Did he just rip the door off that locker?" mumbled Evelyn in shock as they watched another, shorter, boy call the first boy over to Leo and the girl.
'I think he might have.' Devon's eyes were studying the odd group gathered in the middle of the hall intently.
A moment later the first school bell of the day rang and the shorter boy clapped his hands over his ears, started yelling, and collapsed to the floor where he began to writhe in pain.
'That, is unusual,' stated Devon, still watching the group closely.
Evelyn nodded. 'He looks like he's really in pain.'
The bell eventually ended and the boy pulled himself into a sitting position leaning against the taller boy's legs.
"Come on, let's get to class," said Devon as he began dragging her away towards their first period.
Evelyn smiled to herself. 'That one boy was really cute.'
Her brother abruptly stopped and glared at her. 'Evey, I'm a guy. I do not want to know your thoughts on whether or not other guys are hot, sexy, handsome, cute, or adorable. It's just weird. Especially when you compare them to puppies.'
'Sorry Dev.' Evelyn apologized. 'I'll try to keep those thoughts to myself.'
Devon just shook his head. 'Let's get to class.'
Scene Change
'Hey look.' Devon drew Evelyn's attention away from the basketball she'd just thrown. 'Leo brought his friends to gym. Nice shot by the way.'
'Thanks. Figure out their names yet?' She caught another basketball and passed it to her brother.
'Nah, they haven't been in any of my classes yet. I think they're just following Leo to all of his.' He shot the ball towards the hoop and didn't bother to watch it go through, before turning back to watch the group sitting on the bleachers. 'So we'll probably see them in math.'
Evelyn nodded and was about to respond when the girl threw the ball she had caught and nailed poor Kavan right in the face with it. Both twins winced as they heard the meaty smack followed by the loud thud that echoed around the gym as the ball met his face and then his head met the floor.
"Ouch," said Devon. His sister just nodded in agreement. 'She's got a good throwing arm.'
Evelyn nodded again. 'And clearly no idea how to play basketball.'
'Clearly,' agreed Devon. 'Want to go introduce ourse…'
Devon's questioned died before it was completed as they watched the tall boy pick Leo up by the seat of his pants and throw him at the hoop as if he weighed no more than the basketball clutched tightly in Leo's hands. Leo managed to dunk the basketball through the hoop before he fell to the floor. The gym was completely silent as he slowly stood up and looked back at all the people staring at him in shock.
Just as Leo's face was beginning to get a panicked look to it, the rest of the class began to cheer and congratulate him on making such an amazing shot.
The twins politely clapped along but kept their eyes on Leo's strange new friends.
'Why don't we wait till Biology since we both have that with Leo?' Evelyn was still clapping.
Devon shrugged. 'Alright.'
Scene Change
"Grrrr." Devon growled low in his throat in frustration and everyone sitting on the bleachers edged away from him.
Evelyn watched in amusement as an empty space began to grow around where they were sitting. She looked at her obviously frustrated brother. 'They stopped following Leo after gym, didn't they.'
Too frustrated to properly communicate, Devon just growled again, causing the space around them to grow even bigger.
Evelyn let out a small chuckle that made the nearest people jump a little. 'Don't worry about it, we can find them after the pep rally.'
Sighing, Devon made himself calm down. 'Fine.'
'They just joined Leo near the doors.' Evelyn pointed out. She began to laugh quietly to herself as she watched the odd group.
Devon looked at her questioningly. 'What're you laughing about?'
Evelyn just pointed to the side of the gym where the tall boy was trying to get away from Dewey Dingo and shouting something about Salisbury steak.
Devon's laughter joined hers as they watched the boy drag the mascot back and forth across the gym. They were still chuckling when a stream of flames shot out of the boy's eyes and lit the dingo's head on fire.
Devon abruptly stopped laughing and asked, "Did you just see that?"
Shocked, Evelyn just nodded.
The two could only watch as the fire was put out and the still smoking mascot ran in a panic straight through the formation of cheerleaders. The girl that had just been thrown into the air screamed in fright as she realized that there was no one to catch her.
"I've got her!" shouted the girl who'd been following Leo. And suddenly she was on the other side of the room with her arms out to catch the girl. Unfortunately she wasn't positioned quite right and she missed the catch.
The fire alarms chose that moment to go off. The twins watched from their spot at the top of the bleachers as the other students began to panic.
In the middle of the growing crowd of people, the shorter boy yelled loudly to get everyone's attention. "People!" The panicking students paused in their rush to reach the exits to listen as the boy continued, "Statistics show that if we don't panic, seventy percent of us will make it out alive."
The calm lasted long enough for the mob to process that statement and then it devolved once again into a frenzied rush for the doors. The boy was shoved to the side and practically thrown onto the bleachers by the fleeing students.
As the last of the students fled the gym, Evelyn stood up and began making her way towards the bottom of the bleachers. 'We should make sure no one is injured.'
Devon just shrugged and followed her.
They had reached the floor when the gym doors opened to reveal a man and a woman.
"Oh no," said the woman, "they killed Dewey Dingo."
The two adults turned to look across the gym after surveying the damage done. The twins followed their gaze and found that they were staring at Leo and his three mystery friends.
"So," shouted the man, his voice a bit strained, "how was school?"
The odd group gave the adults weak smiles, but didn't say anything.
The twins both jumped as the man shouted, "Get in the helicopter!"
The four teenagers raced out of the gym, closely followed by the two adults. Leaving the twins staring at where they had been standing.
'So,' started Evelyn, 'I'm pretty sure that that was Leo's mom.'
'So that was probably Mr. Davenport,' continued Devon.
'Who's a genius like Dad.'
'It stands to reason that those three are his kids then.'
'Which pretty much explains all the weird things we saw them do today,' finished Evelyn.
Devon let out a huge sigh of relief. 'Oh good, I was starting to wonder how they were doing all that stuff.'
Evelyn gave the gym a final glance. All the other students had left while she and Devon had been thinking. 'Let's get home so we can ask Dad if he knows anything.'
'What time do you think he'll be home?' asked Devon as he led the way towards their lockers.
Evelyn shrugged. 'No idea. What do you want for dinner? Spaghetti or chicken and rice?'
'Spaghetti sounds good.'
Scene Change
Dr. May groaned to himself as he closed the door to the garage behind him. Work had definitely run far to late, it was already after eight.
"Hey Dad," called Devon from where he was sitting at the kitchen counter mixing a salad.
"You guys didn't wait for me to eat did you?" asked Dr. May as he hung up his coat and put his briefcase down.
Evelyn placed a plate full of spaghetti on the counter and said, "We figured out you would be running late and timed it so we could start cooking accordingly." She shooed Devon and his giant bowl of salad over to the table, so that he could serve it.
"Oh Evelyn, you know I don't like it when you two do that," said Dr. May with a stern voice, his expression serious. "I haven't perfected the serum yet."
"Dad, we're fine," said Devon as he returned to the counter to grab the noodle-laden plates. "We just made sure to take some of the antidote immediately after. Our heads barely hurt now."
Dr. May's expression turned exasperated as he watched his two children set the table for dinner. "I'd rather it didn't hurt your heads at all. And don't lie, you've both got splitting headaches, I can tell." He joined his teenagers at the table and picked up his fork.
"Dad, it's really not that bad," said Evelyn as she started to eat her spaghetti.
Dr. May nodded. "Compared to the pain you felt while using it, I'd say the after-effects are rather tame. But that's the whole problem, I don't want you two so used to pain like that. It's not good for your mental development."
Devon looked up from the meatball he'd speared with his fork. "Dad, we're fine, really."
"Devon, it took you three tries to actually stab that meatball and your sister is drinking water like she's dying of dehydration." Dr. May actually rolled his eyes as he spoke. Pinning both twins with a stern glare he continued, "You two are banned from using the serum until I've had a chance to perfect the formulae." Seeing the disagreement in their eyes he added, "Is that understood or do I need to take away the Lamborghini?"
"Understood," answered Devon immediately, echoed a moment later by Evelyn.
Dr. May nodded his head in satisfaction. "Good." He took a sip of his water and after a moment of eating asked, "So other than using a highly painful and imperfect brain serum, what did you two do today?"
The twins glanced at each other before Evelyn started. "We saw Leo today."
Devon picked up where she'd left off. "There were two boys and a girl following him around."
"They weren't normal."
"The tall boy ripped a door off a locker, threw Leo like a basketball, and set the mascot's head on fire with his eyes."
"The shorter boy was pained by the sound of the bell ringing."
"The girl hugged a lunch lady and went from one side of the gym to the other in less than a second."
"Mr. Davenport arrived with Leo's mom and yelled at them and took them all home in a helicopter."
"We think that they're probably Mr. Davenport's kids," finished Devon.
"And that he enhanced them some how," added Evelyn.
Completely used to the twins finishing each other's thoughts, Dr. May nodded. "That's entirely possible, I'll ask him about it when I see him for lunch on Wednesday." Finishing off the last of his noodles, Dr. May asked, "So what will you two do if it turns out that Donald has enhanced them in some way?"
"We'll make some interesting friends," answered Devon with a nonchalant shrug. 'Maybe have a competition to see who's got the better powers.' He added to Evelyn as his dad nodded and stood to take his dishes to the sink.
'They'd be hard pressed to come up with something better than us,' she thought back at him.
The smile on his face matched the mental one he sent her, along with a feeling of complete agreement.