Making a Difference
By Joshua "Dante" Epstein
Chapter II: Potential
"In summation, early man had a number of advantages over modern man. Despite his vastly inferior intellect, his average physical abilities were on par with only the most extraordinary athlete of today. Modern man has become grossly maladaptive on the physical level, relying instead on intellect to see him through his problems. While this has definitely led to improvement in quality of life from the stone age, it is an interesting question to leave you with; what might man have been had he not gone down his current path? Think it over. That's all for today."
Students quickly packed up their books and shuffled out of the classroom, except for him. He sat, quickly scribbling a last few notes
"Mr. Quinn?" Ethan did not look up. "Mr. Quinn." This time, at Professor Hale's brusque tone, Ethan did look up.
"Sorry, professor, I was just trying to get some things down before I went home."
"Mr. Quinn, I've been meaning to speak with you. You've been falling horribly behind here. I know that your scores in your high school classes showed that you'd be one of our finest students. I've been keeping an eye on you, hoping that you would demonstrate some of the potential that your test scores indicate, but I've yet to see it."
"I'm sorry, sir... I've just been... distracted."
"I see. Come with me, Evan."
The old man walked slightly ahead of his pupil, talking the whole time.
"The lecture today put me in mind of this, Evan. It's all about potential, realized and wasted potential. You have a tremendous amount of unrealized potential to excel in this class, and in this field." They stepped into the professor's lab. "Here, I deal with potential, Evan. I believe that man is not one tenth of what he has the capability to be. I believe that the vaunted evolutionary process has cheated mankind out of a remarkable destiny, which is why he is being supplanted by corruptions of his genome. The mutants, the super humans, hah! They're all offshoots of what evolution is recognizing as a dead end. I believe that it can be otherwise."
The building trembled slightly, and Ethan could see it in the vibrations of the tubes and beakers around the lab.
"Only a tremor. You see, I believe that pure man, at his best, would have been more than any of these genfreaks can possibly imagine. That, my boy is why psychopaths like Lenshaar fear mankind. Not because they fear their extinction at the hands of the pathetic excuse of a species that dominates the earth today, but because he sees that true man would surpass even him!"
The old man was almost feverish, now.
"You've got to see it, boy. The possibilities!"
The building shook mightily and sent them both crashing to the floor. All around them beakers came crashing to the floor, and dishes flew off the shelves, one cracking into Ethan's head and sending him sprawling to the floor. That was the last thing he remembered.
