Shipping in Moving In: Testing a Hypothesis
When Lincoln Alvarsson finally escaped school, he was a very sad boy.
He'd narrowly escaped being Bad Touched to oblivion only because the bell had rung, causing the girls to be ousted by the collection of older boys needing to use the lockers. Then Lincoln himself had been spotted in the locker by one of them. Said boy had promptly laughed, slammed the locker door closed again and locked it from the outside, much to the applause of his fellow Jocks.
Lincoln spent another two hours in there.
He was only released after Clyde McBride noticed that the Blond Gang didn't have him and brought a janitor to unlock his locker. Now it was time to go home, McBride had left to meet his Dads and Lincoln still hadn't been able to go to Art class and see the nice studio.
All he could do was trudge through the halls to the exit, clutching his beanie down and trying to avoid attention. Unfortunately for him he could still feel eyes boring into him from every angle, some were simply curious, others glimmered with recognition but their owners didn't call out.
Some however glistened with the diseased desire that burned in the 'Blond Hunters' (as Clyde called them), but whatever their intentions might be they were left unfulfilled. Whenever he spotted them he would quickly starting weaving into the crowd in the hopes of losing them as soon as possible.
Before he knew it he was out of the now open doors and into the sunlight, dazzled by the sudden shift he jumped as a hand touched his shoulder.
"Hey there kid," he blinked and his eyes refocused upon a blue streak running through blonde hair.
It was Luna's girlfriend.
"Sorry to scare you like that," she gave him an awkward but reassuring smile. "Mr Loud and your mom asked me to come pick you up since Luna's… still working through stuff."
"O-okay," he stiffly nodded. It made sense, Mom had dropped him off early again but sometime else would still need to pick him up. Without Lynn (Sr) or Mom, only Lori could pick him up without (probably) molesting him and Lori didn't like him before she started going crazy. If Luna's girlfriend was available, then she was really the best choice. "Thanks."
"No problem kid." The girl guided him onto the sidewalk, partially shielding him from the view of the other students. "I was out today anyway and Lunes isn't really good company at the moment."
He side-eyed her to see if she was lying, not that she would have anything he could think of to gain. From what he could tell no other blonde girls besides Lori were like the Loud Girls and Luna's gang, and this girl (He couldn't remember her name, Max maybe?) was certainly a natural blonde judging by her roots. She was wearing an easy, but slightly fake smile and was slightly bow legged for some reason but she didn't seem like she was trying to trick him.
"Thank anyway." He nodded, and re-affixed his beanie just in case.
"Okay, Sam's got 'im." Luna nodded to Lisa, both safely hidden in a bush. "Now what?"
"We observe, obviously," the prodigy wrote down some notes into a pad with one hand and pressed a device with a satellite-dish esque antenna to her right ear with the other.
"That's it?"
"Our part at this time is pure data collection, should Ms Sharp or Mr Alvarsson become aware of our presence it could impair any natural developments." Lisa indicated to the binoculars. "For now we are only noting any particular deviations in Sharp's behaviour in contrast to her expected pattern of actions."
Luna blinked.
Lisa sighed. "Just let this 'curse' run it's course without getting involved. If the Transmission Hypothesis is correct then by the end of today there should be at least some evidence of altered behaviour from Ms Sharp."
Luna blinked again. "My dude; I can kinda guess what a Transmission Hypothesis is but-"
Lisa sighed, then cleared her throat; "I have two main hypotheses to explain the spread of the family 'curse' outside our genetic template.
The first is the Memetic Hypothesis wherein an afflicted family member's 'enthusiasm' creates a localised cultural environment where the less socially acceptable behaviours exhibited by the women within are tacitly accepted, and therefore merely 'takes the lid off' pre-existing impulses."
"So my club just bein' a place that lets other girls get their freak on?"
Lisa's lips tightened; "Indeed, the second is my Transmission Hypothesis, where proximity to an afflicted Loud can cause their affliction to pass to an otherwise normal individual."
"So just by touchin' someone I could make 'em blonde crazy?" Luna grinned as some possibilities crossed her mind. "Like soma kinda virus?"
"Not entirely what I intended to convey, but accurate enough to understand the core concept." Lisa surmised. "Both hypotheses have some correlative data, but in order to begin determining which is more accurate I needed two things; first a test subject.
One without any previous inclinations to the hysterical obsessions towards the fairer haired to properly verify any 'new desires' as per the Transmission Hypothesis. Through extensive research I have ascertained that Ms Sharp has never had any preference for the fairer haired, indeed she seems to gravitate towards 'Brunettes' as it were."
"Can't fault her tastes," Luna grinned.
Lisa continued, "the other requirement, well more preference I suppose, was some definitive way to trigger those desires in a near-instant and indisputable way, otherwise any such desires and any actions upon them would likely have been gradual and possibly due to a personal change in tastes unrelated to any transmission."
Luna smirked as she thought back to yesterday. "And Lori lost her fuckin' mind didn't she? Little Lincoln over there set 'er off like a bomb!"
Lisa nodded, "exactly. By bringing Lincoln Alvarsson into the household Rita has given me the very tool I require to begin proper research into our shared condition, and well before the full effects reach my own body at puberty."
"And you brought me along because?" Luna queried. "I mean I'm not complaining but-"
"I will need to set up multiple times where the two subjects are effectively isolated, and you are my only practical method of controlling Ms Sharp's whereabouts." Lisa confirmed. "Additionally you have a significant motivation to attempt to 'infect' Ms Sharp-"
"Got it little dude," Luna grinned and looked through her binoculars again, noting that Sam and the whitetop had advanced a few meters. "So what are they talkin' about now? Any… 'evidence' yet?"
Lisa frowned. "Not yet, it would seem that Mr Alvarsson has had a less than ideal second day at school…"
"So then I was stuck in there for hours, and then I missed Art anyway." Lincoln groused, then sighed. "Thanks for letting me vent Max- I mean… Sam?"
He fumbled over his words, but the easy-going girl just gave a laugh.
"Sharp, Sam Sharp." Sam confirmed. "Don't worry about it, for some reason people keep forgetting it. I think Mom and Dad went for an alliteration to help guys remember."
"Alliteration?" Lincoln rolled the word over in his mind to think why it sounded familiar. "Like.. Frank Finkle?"
"The Speedster?" Sam queried. "Hmm, yeah I guess. Do you like comics?"
"Yeah!" He affirmed. "Like Ace Savvy, and MidKnight too!"
"That's cool, I used to be into 'em when I was your age," Sam nodded along. "My little brother's more of a fan than I ever was though; maybe you two could get along?"
"I guess?" Lincoln shrugged. "I don't know who he is though so-"
"Simon's his name, away yea high," Sam put her flatly aligned hand at around her chest height. "Looks a bit like a circle- probably because he keeps stealing my dessert- and I think he's in your grade at the elementary school."
"Ah…" Lincoln deflated. "I-I don't think we've met."
It had been a good talk. Sam was really easy to talk to, even if she was just being nice. It was a bit like talking to Luna had been before she knew about his hair. But the reminder of school promptly soured the good feelings.
Even if Simon was the kind of person he'd have liked to hang out with, there was no way they could be friends at school if he was always hiding from crazy rapey girls (and the odd boy).
"Don't worry about it, he's always on his handheld anyway." Sam waved it off, "it's his loss, Lunes told me you're a nice kid and so far you seem to stack up."
Lincoln winced.
"I mean-" Sam backtracked, then sighed. "Look kid, I know that you copped it from Luna's 'thing'-"
"How do you deal with it?" He blurted. "You're blonde, so isn't she like that with you?"
Sam drew in a breath through gritted teeth, "oh yeah, trust me kid the first time we- um. The first time we made out I half-thought I was being mauled."
"T-then why do you stay with her?"
"'Cause underneath the whole 'Blonde Hunter' stuff she's actually a pretty cool chick," Sam thought back. "Back when we met she was just getting over most of it, I heard she used to be way worse in Middle School. But when we met she just gave me a look that said she liked what she saw and until we started dating that was the end of it. The rest of the time we were friends, then better friends, then… closer.
Most of the time, she's just a go-lucky goofy girl who really likes to smash it in a jam!" Sam grinned in reminiscence. "And when she does get going for me it's-"
She looked at Lincoln, and reminded herself of his age.
"The point I'm getting at here is that she's not just some crazy stalker girl, she's a great person most of the time and once she gets over this 'thing' she'll be back to her normal self." Sam sighed. "I'm not gonna tell you to stay near her if you're uncomfortable. But if you give her a few weeks to screw her head on straight and then let her make it up to you, you won't regret it."
Of course she was pointedly omitting Luna's intention to pounce on him once he turned of age, but she had a few years to talk sense into her girlfriend's head.
She could probably get through by then.
"Aww Sam," Luna's eyes filled with tears and her lips wobbled as she held Lisa's device to her ear. "Ya' really are the best girlfriend a girl could have!"
"Elder sister if you are quite done secreting lachrymal emissions, I need my scanner back," Lisa pointedly held her hand back for her device.
Rolling her eyes Luna handed it back the little genius, who promptly switched the speaker to a louder mode so they could both hear the conversation as the targets had progressed well out of range of overhearing it. Above the little off-white brick's speaker was a green tinted screen with little numbers indicating assorted biological facts about one Sam Sharp. "I believe that now would be a good time to attempt the first intervention."
"She was good before stuff ha- erph!" Lincoln blew out as something hit him the back his head.
"Oh my gosh are you… all right?" Sam faltered.
"I-I think so," Lincoln shook his head, feeling cooler for some reason. "What was that!?"
"A bird I think," Sam stared at him. "It grabbed your beanie and flew off…"
Lincoln froze, then frantically grabbed at his suddenly bare head, sure enough his white locks were exposed to the world for the second time in as many days. "O-oh no."
His beanie was now very gone, the 'bird' in question having flown off and disappeared into the sky. A sky from where shortly it would leave again to land at Lisa's bunker, the very location the mechanical avian had been made in the first place.
"Sorry I didn't see in time…" Sam continued staring at the perfectly white locks.
They were remarkable.
She'd known from Luna's nigh deranged soliloquy that they'd existed. But until now she hadn't really appreciated what natural platinum blond really looked like. Combined with his pale indoor kid skin and hazel eyes, he looked a bit like a kiddie version of one of those vampires from that show Lucy liked.
"Damn…" he'd be a heartbreaker in a few years that was for sure.
"I-I-I!" But right now he was panicking. Oh right, he was sensitive about his hair- heck if he didn't have a complex before then yesterday had guaranteed one.
"Sorry, I don't really… actually." Sam pulled off her coat, and awkwardly tied the arms together before popping it onto his head like one of those head coverings whose name she couldn't remember. "It's not much, but this should help a bit."
He took a moment to recover, then slowly drew his hands out from under the makeshift hat. "T-thanks."
"No problem kid, let's just get you home before someone sees you 'kay?"
"So little dude, what's the verdict?" Luna huffed with a slightly sweaty face, her blood very much raised by the sight of one boy's bare hair again.
"Hmm, the subcutaneous tracker registered several notable, but relatively minor changes in her chemistry…" Lisa read the results again. "However the activity in her-"
"Lisa, in english 'kay?"
Lisa rolled her eyes. "I would say that for my purposes this is still only a minor piece, but my tracker registered some minor signs that indicate low level patterns similar to that found in you and my other elder sister units' brains while performing the obsessive behaviour associated with the 'curse'."
Luna processed this, and a slow smile began to overtake her face. "It's working."
Lisa pushed up her glasses "we cannot be certain yet, we must conduct further tests to ensure this was not a unique deviation-"
Luna just grinned and tuned Lisa out. "Yeah sure Einstein, I get it. She's…"
In her mind a new picture was forming. One of a torn Sam helpless and weakening as a devilish Luna whispered sweet nothings into her ear, until some vital thread snapped behind her eyes forever and the two girls rounded on the white haired boy huddling in the corner, his once protector reaching for him with lustful intent…
"One of us…"
Lisa rolled her eyes at the sight of her elder sister visibly drooling at the thought of some undoubtably disgusting sexual imagery. "This is why I wish to avoid this 'curse' and puberty in general at all costs."
A/N:
Thanks to Nuuo for Beta-reading this chapter.
More a setup for nonsense than a proper silly chapter on it's own, but I think it still works :)
