Chapter 9

Betty, Polly and Jughead all headed back to the Cooper household. Hal and Alice had offered to let Jughead stay with them while the Jones' house was being repaired which was probably going to take at least a week. His parents had agreed since the hotel that they were being put up in was further away from the highschool, and this would be easier for Jughead to go to school.

As they were walking up the driveway to the front door Alice came out.

"Where were you three?" she asked.

"We went to Pop's to get something to eat," Polly replied.

"Did you forget about the offer for dinner at the Lodges'?" Alice asked annoyed.

"Yes, but that's because I have no intention of taking them up on that offer," Betty replied.

"And why, that's rather rude?" Alice asked.

"Because I think the Lodge's might be responsible for the incident at the school and whatever happened to Ambrose," Betty answered.

"That's a kind of wild accusation," Polly commented.

"Why would you think that?" Alice inquired.

"Well that whole heroism medal, which I didn't even end up actually getting, but it all seemed like a farce," Betty said. "I mean the Fire Chief sure didn't seem like it was warranted like he was going through the motions."

"That's true, he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there," Jughead commented.

"Well you did save Veronica's life," Alice said.

"That's debatable," Betty said. "I probably could have just called and let the paramedics and fireman get her out of the car. She wasn't in imminent danger."

"Still why do you think they were responsible?" Polly asked.

"It was something about the interaction I had with them before school in the Principal's office. It was the way they looked at me, it wasn't like they were looking at a person it was like they were analyzing something; like I was an experiment." Betty answered. "It made me feel rather uncomfortable."

"Well why do you think that?" Alice probed.

"I may have ripped the door off of Veronica's car with my bare hands to get her out," Betty said. "And it wasn't something that would have come off from the crash."

"Alright, fine," Alice said slightly disappointed. "Let's all go inside we'll get you settled in Jughead. You can have Betty's room and Betty will sleep in Polly's room."

Polly gave a slight sigh of disappointment of having to share a room again. She and Betty had shared the same bedroom till four years ago when Chic had moved out. Betty had moved into Chic's old room while Polly got their bedroom (which was bigger) to herself.

"Come on Polly, it'll be just like old times," Betty said.

"At least you don't snore," Polly stated trying to be positive.

"Do you want to get your old beds from the basement Betty?" Alice asked.

Betty nodded and in a flash she was gone. As Alice, Polly and Jughead walked up the stairs they felt a breeze blowing first up past them then down and then up again. When they got up the stairs to the bedroom Betty was standing in the door way waiting. Gone was Polly's double bed replace with two twin beds.

"All ready," she announced.

"Okay that was… how are you two used to it?" Jughead asked Polly and Alice.

"Well I pretty much grew up with it," Polly replied. "So it would be weird if she couldn't do that."

"She's been doing stuff like that pretty much since she could walk," Alice added. "So while it's a little weird at first you end up growing used to it."

Betty just grinned proudly, glad that she could show off to her friend finally.

"Wait a minute… My Little Pony Sheets? Oh come on Betty!" Polly exclaimed as she saw what was on the beds. "Where did you even find these?"

"They were in a box down in the basement right beside the bed frames," Betty replied.

"They used to be your favourite sheets Polly," Alice said.

"Yeah, when I was ten," Polly complained. "I'm twenty now."

"Oh get over yourself," Betty said. "It's only for a little while."

"I'm gonna burn them when this is over," Polly muttered.

"Well since you three have already eaten, and we're not going to the Lodge's I'm going to go shopping for your birthday present Betty? Do you have anything in particular that you want?" Alice asked.

"Oh yeah your birthday is this Saturday," Jughead commented. "You know you've never had a birthday party before."

"That's because it's the same day that they always hold the memorial service for the people who were killed in the meteor shower," Betty said. "Just about every family in Riverdale lost somebody that day, so seems a little inappropriate to be having a party on a day when a lot of people are mourning."

"Fair point, my dad's parents were both killed that day," Jughead said. "I never knew them, but I know my dad's always made us go to the memorial service because of them."

"We were lucky," Alice said. "The only casualty in our family was the daughter I was pregnant with who ended up being still born. But we were blessed with Betty just minutes later."

"You know I don't think it's my actual birthday," Betty said. "I mean somehow I don't think I arrived on Earth on the same day I was actually born."

"Well I think we should do something this year," Polly said. "I mean you are turning 16. I'd take you to the DMV to get your license but unfortunately it's closed because it's Saturday."

"Is there anything you want to do?" Jughead asked.

Betty considered the question for a moment.

"Could we go to Six Flags Great Adventure?" Betty suggested.

Both Jughead and Polly got excited by that idea.

"Well I'll have to run it by your father, but I don't see why not," Alice replied. "Besides it might be a good idea to get out of town that day."

Betty, Jughead and Polly all high-fived each other and then ran downstairs.

Later that evening Jughead, Polly and Betty were down in the basement watching TV when Hal came in.

"Oh hi dad," Betty said. "Did you want to watch the baseball game?"

Hal Cooper was a diehard New York Mets fan.

"Nah, the Mets aren't playing tonight," Hal replied. "I did just talk to your mother though and we're definitely taking you to Six Flags for your birthday."

Betty, Jughead and Polly all celebrated once more.

"Can I bring anybody else?" Betty asked.

"We've got enough room in the van to take two more people," Hal said. "Unfortunately that's it."

"Well Sheila's got to come obviously," Jughead said. "But who else are you going to invite?"

Betty considered for a moment.

"You know what, I think I'll invite Dilton," Betty replied. "I kind of owe him for helping me out the other day."

"Are you sure?" Jughead asked. "Dilton's a nice enough guy but… he's a little strange too."

"Why not invite Archie?" Polly suggested. "You've always had a crush on him."

"I don't know; he always goes to the memorial service, I mean his parents were killed," Betty stated. "And can you guys guarantee that he won't have that pendant of his with him?"

"I could steal it," Jughead said.

"I don't want that," Betty said. "That's a sentimental reminder of his parents. I don't want you taking something important to him away."

"Your loss," Jughead said with a shrug.

"Well whoever you decide let me know," Hal said before he headed back upstairs.

That night Betty and Polly were in Polly's room, sharing it for the first time in four years. They could hear Jughead next door in Betty's room snoring softly.

"Hey Polly, can I ask you something?" Betty inquired quietly.

"Of course," Polly replied.

"If you were in my position, would you want to learn about where you came from?" Betty asked.

"Well I'm not in your position and I want to know," Polly replied. "So yes."

"But what if it meant you'd have to go away and you didn't know for how long, or even where?" Betty asked.

"I might put it off for a little bit, but there's no way I could stave off my curiosity for long," Polly said. "And if I know you, which after nearly sixteen years I'm pretty sure I do, you're just as curious."

"You're right," Betty said. "I guess I just needed to hear it from you."

"You might not want to tell Dad you're thinking about going with the ship though," Polly said. "He would dismantle that thing before letting you go anywhere with it."

"Well good luck to him with that," Betty said. "I punched it about as hard as I could and it didn't even make a dent. I was trying to destroy it."

"Were you?" Polly asked.

"Yes, at the time I was sure that it was trying to kill Dad," Betty said. "And I'll do whatever I have to when it comes to protecting you guys."

"Well I'm glad to hear that," Polly said.

The two sisters lay there in silence for a while before both of them drifted off to sleep.

It was approaching midnight, but Veronica Lodge was still at Belle Reeve. She had been there since eight in the morning and after being introduced to the staff as the new director of the facility she had spent close to fourteen hours going over all of the research that had been done and was currently being done at the facility.

One of the first things she had done was suspend the human testing. Not because of the loss of life, but rather the inefficiency. Obtaining test subjects was very difficult to do without attracting attention and with the high percentage that died (which was almost 80%) the number they needed to obtain was high. Instead she wanted testing being done on animals and if that gave positive results then they could move onto human testing.

Fortunately there had been quite a bit of animal testing going on as well. Veronica had gone over the various experiments sorting through which ones showed promise and which ones didn't.

There were a few interesting ones; one involved cheetahs which seemed to make them even faster than their already impressive speed. There was another being done with wasps which seemed to increase the control that a queen had over the hive which made them more aggressive, it also showed that she could take control of the drones from other hives and make them turn on their queen.

But the experiment that she found showed the most interesting promise was the one where meteor rock was ground up and mixed with standard fertilizer and used on plants. There were tests being done with all sorts of plants, some plants grew far larger than normal, some changed colour and others look no different; but all the plants showed some sort of mutation to their DNA when looked at under an microscope.

Veronica was reading a report about modified corn at the moment. About one ten kernels on the cob was a bright green colour while the other nine were a normal yellow. However all the kernels showed the same modification to the plants DNA.

Veronica pulled up an image of the corn's DNA and looked it over, comparing it to an image of the DNA of an unmodified corn plant. She was biologist so she knew what she was looking at although her focus was more on fauna than flora. From what Veronica could tell the changes to corn did affect anything with the plant itself, however the changes to the plants proteins looked as though they would be passed on to anything that consumed it.

"You're here late," Veronica heard her father say behind her.

Veronica turned around a little startled. She hadn't heard him enter the office.

"Sorry father, there's just so much to catch up on here," Veronica said.

"I know; it's all rather impressive isn't it? I don't entirely understand it all myself. But I'm sure you've got a much better grasp on the science of it than I do," Hiram commented.

Veronica knew that her father was a brilliant man, but his mind was geared almost exclusively towards business and politics. Veronica had a similar mind but with the added bonus of being a brilliant scientist, she knew that one day, probably not too far in the future she would succeed her father and take Lodge Corp from him.

"It's quite fascinating," Veronica said. "But a lot of the work being done here has been sloppy. They keep doing tests when there's not promising leads rather than focusing on those that show promise."

"Well it's been difficult keeping a director in charge," Hiram said. "They've all failed to live up to my expectations."

Veronica wasn't entirely surprised by that; her father had extremely high expectations of anybody that worked under him.

"Who was my predecessor here?" Veronica asked curiously.

"A Dr. Steven Hamilton, I believe," Hiram replied.

Veronica hadn't heard of him before.

"What happened to him?" Veronica inquired.

"The stress of the job got to be too much for him," Hiram replied.

Veronica felt like her father was keeping something from her, but she knew that trying to get it from him was futile. She'd just figure out what happened to her predecessor on her own.

"Come Veronica, you should get home and get some rest," Hiram said. "All of this will still be here when you return tomorrow."

Veronica nodded and straightened up her desk and turned her computer off. She then got up and left the office with her father, pausing in the door to look back. She noticed for the first time a red chunk of crystal that was being kept in a cube that was probably made from Plexiglas or Lexan sitting on a filing cabinet in the corner. She wondered why she hadn't notice it before. She decided to investigate it tomorrow as she followed her father out of Belle Reeve to the waiting limousine.

Not the most exciting chapter I know, but a setup for things to come. The last part was to show how Veronica is not at all like her character from the comics but is far similar to that of Lex Luthor (which is the role she's playing here). Please review.