Chapter 24

Barry and Betty arrived back at the school to see that everybody was leaving. Betty quickly found, Jughead and Dilton.

"What's going on?" Betty asked.

"They're sending everyone home. Probably because the police want to talk to everyone directly involved separately," Dilton answered.

"We need to try and figure out what happened too Adam," Betty said.

"Do you think maybe it's some kind of mind control?" Jughead suggested.

"Ugh, I hope not," Barry said. "I mean how can you fight that?"

"Well it depends on how the mind is controlled," Dilton said. "There's several theories on how that could be done. The most popular one is by transmitting on the radio frequency that's sync with a brain's function. However that one in practice comes across as a crap shoot, like you would have a one in ten billion chance at properly sync up with your target's brain."

"Well what do you think it is?" Betty asked.

"Well amongst insects that form large colonies like bees, wasps and ants the Queen tends to control the others through scent. Personally I feel like that's the best way to control someone is through scent, now how exactly that would work… I don't know," Dilton replied. "And odds are it wouldn't even be a scent you can recognize, not like a pie or a burger. It would seem odourless, most pheromones don't have a noticeable smell."

"That's a scary thought," Jughead said.

"It is, but if that is the case it would be fairly ease to stop," Dilton said. "Olfactory blockers are simple enough. The issue would be detecting it them, and since olfactory blockers plug up your nose you're usually left mouth breathing, which isn't exactly the most appealing thing in the world."

"This is all just speculation though," Barry said. "For all we know this Adam kid simply lost it."

"He's right," Betty agreed. "I think we wait and see what happens when they question Adam and go from there."

"What if something else happens in the meantime though?" Jughead asked.

"Well if somebody else goes postal then I think we'll have our answer," Betty said.

"Do you think maybe who he was trying to kill might help us figure out who is behind this?" Barry suggested.

"Cheryl has so many enemies though," Dilton said.

"Yeah but none of them would kill her," Jughead said.

"Don't under estimate the vindictiveness of a teenage girl," Betty commented.

"What do you mean?" Barry asked.

"Midge Klump," Betty replied. "She used to be Cheryl's best friend and… they had an ugly falling out, I don't really know all the details. But Midge went from being the second most powerful girl in school to a total social outcast. I've seen the way she looks at Cheryl since, it's a death stare."

"Yeah but if Midge could do something like this I don't think she would have ended up in her situation in the first place," Jughead said.

"She probably would have been the one running the school and not Cheryl," Dilton added.

"Fair point," Betty agreed. "Still I think we should keep an eye on her."

"If we were police or private eyes, I would agree," Barry said. "But we're just high school students. We can't keep somebody under surveillance, at least not without raising a great deal of suspicion."

"He's right," Jughead agreed. "We can't do anything without more information. And what if it isn't Midge we'd be wasting a great deal of time watching her, and I really don't want to do that."

Betty looked at Dilton who nodded in agreement. She let out a small defeated sigh.

"Alright," Betty said. "Well we've got the rest of the day off and lunch got interrupted, who wants to go to Pop's?"

"You know I do!" Jughead said eagerly.

"What's Pop's?" Barry asked.

"Only the best burger joint in town!" Jughead exclaimed.

"It's a diner near here," Dilton said. "It used to be called the Chock'lit Shoppe from when it was first built in the 50's. The man who owns it, his family has owned it since it first opened. He renovated it a little while back."

"Sounds cool," Barry said. "Let's go."

Midge arrived home; as soon as she came in through the door her father sprang from his office.

"Midge why are you home?" he asked.

Midge grinned at him.

"It worked daddy," she said. "It worked better than you said it would."

Victor's eyes went wide with surprise and a smile came across his face.

"Tell me what happened?" he asked eagerly.

"Well when I got to school I tried it immediately on the first boy I saw," Midge said. "I told him to kill Cheryl and he tried to! Somebody stole the gun from him, but even then he leapt at her! Some of the boys stepped in and beat him up, but he was so desperate to do what I told him to it was wonderful!"

With each detail of her story Victor's expression changed from one of excitement and amazement to one of shock and horror. He hadn't intended for Midge to use this to kill people.

"Midge that's not why I gave you the…" he began to say.

Midge held up her finger to his lips cutting him off. As he watched she showed him the vial and then sprinkled it on herself. Even though he couldn't smell anything he could feel his sense dull and he became transfixed on his daughter.

"You're going to make me more of this," Midge said. "Actually I want you to figure out a way so that I secrete this stuff naturally."

"I… I…" Victor tried to protest.

However he suddenly found himself turning and going back into his office and looking over his notes. Soon his mind was racing with thoughts on how to do as Midge asked.

Betty and the others were sitting in a booth at Pop's looking over the menus. Jughead was pointing out all of his favourites to Barry which was just about every single thing on the menu. Dilton was looking over his phone.

"Betty, I got a message from Cricket," Dilton said.

Betty set her menu down a little surprised.

"What is it?" Betty asked.

"Apparently she's in Las Vegas and she's working with the FBI," Dilton said. "She says that the best way to communicate is for you to go out and meet her."

"Vegas? How am I supposed to do that?" Betty asked.

"I could go for you," Barry suggested. "I mean I've run from Central City to Los Angeles and back in under an hour."

"Under an hour? That's more than 4000 miles per hour!" Dilton exclaimed in disbelief. "That's hypersonic!"

"Well that's pacing myself," Barry said. "I've broken 10000 miles per hour over short distances."

"I've managed a little over 7000 myself," Betty said. "2 miles in a second."

"What are we talking about here kids?" Pop asked as he came over to take their order.

Pop was a heavy set man with dark hair who was balding on the top.

"Just a video game," Jughead answered. "A high speed racing one, Barry here is really good at it."

Pop looked at Barry.

"You're new around here, Barry is it?" Pop asked holding out his hand.

"Barry Allen," Barry introduced himself shaking Pop's hand. "My family just moved here from Central City."

"Well hopefully I'll be seeing a lot more of you Barry Allen," Pop said. "I can tell already you're a good kid, you've picked some of the best kids in town to be friends with."

Betty, Dilton and Jughead looked around a little embarrassed.

"Well looks like I'm embarrassing them, a task I should save for their parents," Pop said with a chuckle. "How about I just take your order?"

"I'll have my usual," Jughead said.

"The Everything Burger with fries and onion rings?" Pop asked which Jughead confirmed with a nod.

"I'll get the Southern Fried Catfish," Dilton said, "With the sweet potato fries."

"I'll have the Chicken Avocado Club Sandwich," Betty said, "With the deep fried pickles."

"And how about you?" Pop asked Barry who was still looking at the menu.

"I think I'll have the Triple-Triple burger," Barry said. "And I'll get fries and onion rings with that."

"Are you sure?" Pop asked sceptically. "That's three patties each with three types of cheese."

"Yeah I'm sure," Barry replied handing him the menu.

Pop shrugged and took the menu as well as the others and went to prepare the order.

"A Triple-Triple Burger?" Jughead asked. "That thing is big even I only get that when I'm really hungry."

"Side effect of the super speed is a super-fast metabolism," Barry explained. "I need to eat about 6000 calories a day."

"That would make sense," Dilton commented. "There would have to be some kind of adaption to your physiology to provide the energy for your speed. I would suspect though that as your body adapts to whatever it is that gives you your speed you metabolism will begin to normalize, although it will likely always be faster than average."

"It already has, I used to need 10000 calories a day," Barry said. "How about you Betty, how much do you need to eat?"

"Honestly I don't know," Betty said. "I've had some days I'm really hungry and I can eat a ton and others where I don't feel hungry at all. But I don't know actually know anything about myself."

"What do you mean?" Barry asked.

"Well as I was about to explain back at the library, I'm not human, I'm an alien," Betty answered.

"Alien?" Barry repeated in disbelief. "What did you come here in a flying saucer?"

"It's really more of a wedge shaped ship," Betty replied.

"You're kidding," Barry said.

"No I've seen it," Jughead stated.

"Where is it?" Barry asked curiously.

"Buried about twenty some odd feet deep on my farm," Betty replied.

"Why?" Barry inquired.

"Because the ship's AI and I don't get along," Betty answered.

"What do you mean?" Barry asked.

"I get the impression it doesn't like how… human I act," Betty answered.

Barry nodded although he didn't really understand.

"Do you think maybe this thing with Adam is related to that Belle Reeve facility you told me about?" Barry asked.

"The probability is extremely likely," Dilton replied.

"That makes getting in contact with Cricket even more important," Betty said. "If the Lodges are behind this she's got vital information on the facility and how to stop them."

"The problem is how do we contact her?" Jughead stated. "Sure we know she's in Las Vegas, but that's a big city and apparently she's working with the FBI."

"Did she send anything saying how to contact her?" Betty asked Dilton.

Dilton read the message over and shook his head.

"Then there's not much we can do," Betty said. "Maybe on the weekend Barry and I can go out there to look for her."

"You're not doing anything with Jason this weekend?" Jughead asked.

"Shit… yes! Jason and I are going on a double date with Cheryl and Reggie," Betty replied.

"I can still go," Barry offered.

"Cricket doesn't know you, and she'll be expecting me," Betty said. "Hopefully we can go on Sunday."

"Let's just hope that isn't too late," Dilton said somewhat ominously.

Veronica was furious. She'd just gotten reports of a student going crazy and attempting to kill another student at Riverdale High. It hadn't taken her long to put two and two together and figure out that it had been Dr. Klump's daughter who was responsible. This was the worst possible scenario. She had done what she could to distance herself from the Klumps but that didn't seem like it would be enough.

Klump's pheromones experiments were clearly successful and given the report she had read, extremely effective. That in and of itself wasn't the issue, the issue was that he had given it to his clearly deranged daughter. Veronica knew that she had to somehow put a stop to Klump's daughter before people started getting hurt or it was likely that things would turn back on her. She also knew she needed to secure Klump's experiment. It could prove extremely useful for her in so many different ways.

The problem was how would she go about doing this, Veronica didn't want to use any of the staff associated with Belle Reeve just in case it didn't work. She picked up her phone and was about to call her father when she paused. She wasn't sure she wanted her father involved in this, instead Veronica called her mother.

"Veronica darling what a surprise to hear from you," her mother said when she answered.

"Mother, I need your help," Veronica said.

Who's going to stop Midge? Or can she be stopped? And will her father be able to do as she asks? Find out in the next chapter. Please review!