Okay, don't laugh - this whole chapter was written to MADNESS! " Our house...la, la, la-la, la!" I'm singing to myself. Let the ska beats beat on!
Chapter 12
************
Todd slowly uncurled himself from the ball that he had slept in - he had no idea that the nights could get so cold. This had been the first night that he had ever slept outside of his house. Just that thought had reaffirmed how real his situation was. He had run away.
Todd stood up, his muscles feeling all cramped from an uneasy rest. His dreams had been plagued by worry and nightmares of what was to come. But the quiet of that morning was reassuring. He stood under the trees for a few minutes - soaking up the butter rays from the rising sun and his ears delighting in the songs of carefree birds.
He had to get going, he knew that. He grabbed his backpack, and wished for a second that he had a mirror to make sure that his hair looked okay. He had bangs that went down to the tops of his ears and the rest of his hair was short and messy. Even if he always styled it to look messy - it had to look the 'right' kind of messy. He was sure that it looked like the 'wrong' messy.
His jeans were dirty from the night of lying on the ground, and no matter how hard he tried to beat the dust out of them, the jeans remained dirty. *great,* he thought, *now I look like some bum.*
Todd left the spot where he had rested during the night and started once again on his journey. He had no idea where this school was - but just like Rob, he felt quite confident that he would somehow stumble upon the clues.
He walked for the better part of the day - stopping at a Taco Bell around lunch to buy some burritos - unlike Rob, he looked quite normal and could easily pass for a non-mutant. He was sitting in the dining area of the Taco Bell and looked up at the monitor that the workers used to read orders. Suddenly, the screen flickered, and an image came on the screen.
He remembered the memory - he was dancing up a storm at the Slackers show. But there was no sound - those monitors didn't have speakers. Bummer.
Todd shook his head, and before any of the workers had noticed, the picture flickered out. Once again, it dished out orders to the workers who stared at it from below. He rolled his eyes to himself, * I have to learn how to control this.*
When he was finished eating, he subversively refilling his glass of (free) water with some Sierra Mist, and left the building. He walked further and further, until he finally felt far too alone and walked to the nearest store. Fortunately for him - he was in a town with a mall, where he KNEW he could find someone who was cool enough to talk to for a while.
He walked in through the doors - and a blast of air conditioning hit him in the face. It made him shiver - it wasn't THAT warm out yet. The first thing that he wanted to do was to find a TV that was relatively secluded from everyone else - he had a burning desire to test out his mutations even further.
Todd walked through the people who were shopping, looking at all of them in turn. How many of these people were mutants? Were there any here, trying to live a life like a normal person? Todd thought about the rumors of the mutant registration act - how much damage that could cause to someone who just wanted to live a normal life. His eyes passed over faces of fathers, mothers, children. He knew that there had to be some that his eyes passed over that hated him, that wanted him dead, that wanted to see him suffer for no other reason than their fear. But he looked at the people around him and only felt compassion - he believed firmly in the beauty of life, the ups and the downs, everything that made the world turn.
Todd stopped dead in his tracks, for there were quite a few people milling around in front of a Radio Shack. There were countless amounts of TVs in the window, all of them turned to the news. Todd rolled his eyes for a moment - like they were really thinking that the news would persuade someone to buy a TV? The news almost made the TV unbearable - but then he realized what the people were watching.
In bright bold letters, the caption on the screen read : ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON PRESIDENT UNDER INVESTIGATION.
" Just wait!," Todd said, pushing his way through the crowd, " What happened?"
The TV didn't provide the answers straight away. A mother who was standing just in front of him turned to look at him, and then added, " It was one of those god damn mutants."
Todd's heart sank.
" Oh, shit," he said to himself, but the mother thought his emotions were different.
" I know," the woman continued, " How could those bastards in Senate think that we could trust them?"
Todd looked at the screen, realizing that the same emotions would be spreading across the nation. Was his brother going to be okay? Where was he at this time? Would he be safe at the school? What was going to happen?
Suddenly, the screen flickered as if the picture was fading out, and a new scene was on the screen. There was a large college-type classroom, filled with students, all sitting in the stadium like seats. No one could see the professor who was teaching the class, but his voice still came over the television speakers.
" You see, when the dinosaurs went extinct, there was a very large gap to be filled. Before, there were bipedal carnivore hunters, smaller, bipedal ovivores - uh, that's the egg hunters. And there were herbivores large and small. There were dinosaurs, the pterosaurs, that dominated the skies, dinosaurs in the sea. In short, dinosaurs ruled every niche of the eco-system. Now, when they went extinct, there were very large shoes for the mammals to fill. (some of the students laughed) They had to become hunters, grazers, flyers, swimmers. And in the course of a few million years, they took over where the dinosaurs had left off.
" Now, what is happening now? In our world today? Because of mankind, animals are going extinct all over the world. We are running out of our hunters, our grazers, our swimmers. Soon, there won't be anymore animals left.
" Which is WHY mutants are rising in our gene pool. It's a natural evolutionary reaction - without all these niches being filled, we have to find ways to CHANGE to fit them. But what is happening is not what had happened in the past. Instead of hunters - we find that we have teleporters. Instead of grazers - we have mind readers. What does this mean? What direction will the mutants take the future of evolution? I for one, would like to find out."
The screen flickered once again, and returned to the normal news. The people surrounding Todd had hardly noticed that he had used his powers at all. Todd was breathing a little hard, a tinge of panic slowly ebbing away. That had been his father on the screen - giving a lecture to his biology class.
But that didn't answer any questions. How did he gain access to his father's memories? Was simple contact all that he needed? What had his dad meant when he said that Todd had no idea what they were planning to do? Who? And how did his dad know about it?
Todd tried to clear his mind and focus. *Okay, why would Dad be involved with something dealing with mutants?* Todd thought. He realized that his mind didn't just project images for no reason - he just saw why. His dad WANTED to know about mutants. What kinds of mutants would rise and dominate the planet. His dad was a biologist with a deep love of evolutionary theory. He WANTED to know what was going to happen.
But what did he mean when he said ' Do you know what they are planning to do?'
Who was his dad working with? What were THEY intending to do?
Todd turned away from the TV and continued walking. Sure, he got away with it that time, but he couldn't risk projecting anything on the television and getting caught. There was far too much anti-mutant sentiment in the air right now. He would have to try later.
*********
Adrian slowly opened his eyes. He never remember such a feeling as this. He couldn't concentrate on anything. It had taken him nearly an hour just to wake up. Every time he tried to string a few thoughts together, they got muddled and confused. Adrian didn't even realize that he was wearing a strange looking helmet that was preventing him from teleporting. He just couldn't concentrate.
Which meant that he couldn't teleport anywhere.
He winced at the pain that he felt - something between a headache and extreme sleep deprivation and a little bit of hunger. He couldn't even begin to wonder where he was. He just had to accept that he was there.
He looked around his surroundings - he was in a cell. He could clearly see through the walls, for they were merely bars. A few cells down, he could see Brit. She was huddled in a corner, crying.
" Brit!," Adrian called, but he felt a pang in his head. It hurt too much to talk, and he simply lay on the ground, holding his head.
" Adrian?," she asked - she had thought that he was still unconscious, " Are you awake?"
" Sort of," Adrian whispered back, once again, pain infiltrating his mind, " Can you see Rob?" After he said that, more pain dulled his concentration, and he vowed never to speak a word again.
" Yeah, he's okay," Brit said, and then pointed vaguely in one direction, " He's over there, he's in a big holding tank of water, but he looks okay." She sobbed for a second, " What are we doing here?"
That answer became clear soon enough. A far door was unlocked, and a whole mob of people came swarming out into the cell block. Some of them were wearing military uniforms, and who had enough medals to inhibit their ability to stand straight. Some of them were most obviously students - desperately scribbling down every word that was being said. One person lead the whole group - who was dressed smartly in a suit that made him appear much younger than he was. That man was Professor Craig Vincennes.
He seemed very much in his element - despite all the things that had happened in his life. He couldn't have been more thrilled. He was finally having an opportunity to do research work on mutants, something that his love of evolutionary theory had been begging for him to do. But there were some who thought that the idea of caging mutants and learning about them would be dangerous. Vincennes had to prove the importance of his work, or else he could say goodbye to his research grant, and also watch as his subjects were shipped off elsewhere - out to where Stryker was, where he had even worse plans for them.
Even if Vincennes had no qualms about keeping his own son here - even if he was so possessed by the desire to understand the mutation that was sweeping mankind - even if he would be emotionless as he did his research on children, he would do anything he could to prevent Stryker from possessing these specimens. In a sentimental way, Vincennes convinced himself that he couldn't be so cruel as to do that to his son.
" You see," Craig Vincennes began, " I think that Nature had this planned, perhaps, if such things are possible. Well, now take for example something like a trilobite -"
" What's a trilobite?," one of the people who were obviously not a student spoke up.
" An extinct arthropod," a student said over her notebook.
" A what?"
" An extinct type of insect," Professor Vincennes clarified.
" What does that have to do with mutants?," another military-looking guy growled.
" Let me explain. See, the trilobite has a very small brain -," Vincennes got cut off.
" You could have just used a stegosaurus," a student suggested.
" Okay, fine, imagine a stegosaurus. He has a very small brain. But it gave him everything that he needed. He didn't need a large brain - his brain was perfectly sized for his lifestyle. Eating, mating, fending off predators."
" Where is this going?," the growl-voiced military-looking guy said impatiently.
" Now people, we have very large brains, correct? Now, our whole brain gets nutrition, our whole brain receives the same electronic impulses - but we only use a small percentage of our brains. About the same amount as our friend stegosaurus. I mean, look at Adrian Nickels, here -"
Adrian gave them a dirty look as the mob of scientists turned in his direction.
" - What biological importance would teleporting have? Escaping from predators really becomes efficient. But where did this ability come from? Did this mutant have to be born with a different kind of organ in order to have the ability to teleport? Of course not, or else we'd be able to detect mutancy from birth. No, this mutation comes from the brain - and only during puberty does this reveal itself - through the increased rate of hormones that come in contact with the brain."
" So what you are saying is that everyone has the ability to be a mutant?"
" What I'm saying is that mutants are not a new phenomenon. Our brain's have not changed since the dawn of mankind, which means that we've always had these abilities. Perhaps there have been people using these mutant powers all through out our history and we've never even noticed. Every human on this planet right now has the ability to teleport or the ability to read minds. Yet so far, there hasn't been a need for mutants to exist in any ecosystem structures. But now, mutants are rising in records numbers. Why now? Why after all this time?
" Because, animals are going extinct - tigers, elephants, whales, birds, and through out the course of evolutionary history, there has never been one single dominating species on the planet. It just simply cannot happen. Homo sapiens are not meant to be the sole rulers of the world - and now, we could safely presume that each one of these mutants can be considered a NEW species, a cousin of mankind.
" Which is why it is so important to study them. To know where we are going in -"
The growled-voice military-looking guy interrupted, " Does this mean that we're going extinct?"
" Quite possibly," Vincennes started, and then corrected himself, " Well, yes, actually. Most likely, yes. I doubt very much if non-mutant people will be able to compete. Yet we are the coelacanth of the things to come, we have had our place in the shaping of life."
The military guy was quite put off by Vincennes poetic musings, " Are you siding WITH the mutants. I've heard that your son is one of them."
This made Adrian snap is head in attention.
" I'm simply a scientist," Vincennes explained, " I want to know what the future will bring."
The students all nodded and scribbled down in their notebooks, and Professor Vincennes lead them away from Adrian's cell. So is that why he was here? To test out some old man's theory? He rolled his eyes, but couldn't think on the matter much more.
His concentration was slipping.
***********
Professor Craig Vincennes had stayed late that night, even after all the other employees had left. He was alone. Somewhere else in the country at that very moment, the X-Men were listening to Magneto's plan of uniting against Stryker. But Vincennes knew nothing of this, or what their late night discussions would lead to.
At the moment, his eyes and attention were focused upon the motionless form of his son. He remembered the first time he had watched Rob actually staying alive under water. At that time, he was overcome with the fear that Rob would die.
Yet at the same time, he began to think. He had begun constructing a theory on WHY mutants were spreading across the country. He even began writing it that same night. He began teaching it a few days later in class. Craig was completely obsessed with the idea.
And fortunately, for him at least, his work gained much more prominent attention. There were people who became very interested in this theory of his, had offered him a job, had even offered to fetch him a few mutants if they could ever get the President to allow them to. Of course, Vincennes was well aware that his son would be in danger - but the opportunities a job like this could offer?
No longer would his work go by unnoticed. He could finally get his voice heard - his ideas on evolution, on biology, on why mutations were even happening.
And in the end, he cared far more about his work than his family.
His eyes looked over Rob one more time - he was kept constantly unconscious since his powers of convincibility were far too dangerous. Rob would never know what was going on. So in the end, Craig was in the clear, he was safe - when his work was done, Rob would be none the wiser. Rob would never know who had done this to him.
Or at least, that's what Craig was hoping. He had no idea what was in store for him in his future...
*********
Okay -that's the end of this chapter. Yeah, if no one can tell, I am a huge buff on evolution - Okay, the next chapter - Adrian finds a way to get everyone to escape - but someone mysterious has special plans for Rob (hint - check out my summary, right?) So, more action to come!!!!!!!!! Also, Todd will appear much more often in the chapters to come!
Next chappie up in a few days!
please review!
deke
Chapter 12
************
Todd slowly uncurled himself from the ball that he had slept in - he had no idea that the nights could get so cold. This had been the first night that he had ever slept outside of his house. Just that thought had reaffirmed how real his situation was. He had run away.
Todd stood up, his muscles feeling all cramped from an uneasy rest. His dreams had been plagued by worry and nightmares of what was to come. But the quiet of that morning was reassuring. He stood under the trees for a few minutes - soaking up the butter rays from the rising sun and his ears delighting in the songs of carefree birds.
He had to get going, he knew that. He grabbed his backpack, and wished for a second that he had a mirror to make sure that his hair looked okay. He had bangs that went down to the tops of his ears and the rest of his hair was short and messy. Even if he always styled it to look messy - it had to look the 'right' kind of messy. He was sure that it looked like the 'wrong' messy.
His jeans were dirty from the night of lying on the ground, and no matter how hard he tried to beat the dust out of them, the jeans remained dirty. *great,* he thought, *now I look like some bum.*
Todd left the spot where he had rested during the night and started once again on his journey. He had no idea where this school was - but just like Rob, he felt quite confident that he would somehow stumble upon the clues.
He walked for the better part of the day - stopping at a Taco Bell around lunch to buy some burritos - unlike Rob, he looked quite normal and could easily pass for a non-mutant. He was sitting in the dining area of the Taco Bell and looked up at the monitor that the workers used to read orders. Suddenly, the screen flickered, and an image came on the screen.
He remembered the memory - he was dancing up a storm at the Slackers show. But there was no sound - those monitors didn't have speakers. Bummer.
Todd shook his head, and before any of the workers had noticed, the picture flickered out. Once again, it dished out orders to the workers who stared at it from below. He rolled his eyes to himself, * I have to learn how to control this.*
When he was finished eating, he subversively refilling his glass of (free) water with some Sierra Mist, and left the building. He walked further and further, until he finally felt far too alone and walked to the nearest store. Fortunately for him - he was in a town with a mall, where he KNEW he could find someone who was cool enough to talk to for a while.
He walked in through the doors - and a blast of air conditioning hit him in the face. It made him shiver - it wasn't THAT warm out yet. The first thing that he wanted to do was to find a TV that was relatively secluded from everyone else - he had a burning desire to test out his mutations even further.
Todd walked through the people who were shopping, looking at all of them in turn. How many of these people were mutants? Were there any here, trying to live a life like a normal person? Todd thought about the rumors of the mutant registration act - how much damage that could cause to someone who just wanted to live a normal life. His eyes passed over faces of fathers, mothers, children. He knew that there had to be some that his eyes passed over that hated him, that wanted him dead, that wanted to see him suffer for no other reason than their fear. But he looked at the people around him and only felt compassion - he believed firmly in the beauty of life, the ups and the downs, everything that made the world turn.
Todd stopped dead in his tracks, for there were quite a few people milling around in front of a Radio Shack. There were countless amounts of TVs in the window, all of them turned to the news. Todd rolled his eyes for a moment - like they were really thinking that the news would persuade someone to buy a TV? The news almost made the TV unbearable - but then he realized what the people were watching.
In bright bold letters, the caption on the screen read : ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON PRESIDENT UNDER INVESTIGATION.
" Just wait!," Todd said, pushing his way through the crowd, " What happened?"
The TV didn't provide the answers straight away. A mother who was standing just in front of him turned to look at him, and then added, " It was one of those god damn mutants."
Todd's heart sank.
" Oh, shit," he said to himself, but the mother thought his emotions were different.
" I know," the woman continued, " How could those bastards in Senate think that we could trust them?"
Todd looked at the screen, realizing that the same emotions would be spreading across the nation. Was his brother going to be okay? Where was he at this time? Would he be safe at the school? What was going to happen?
Suddenly, the screen flickered as if the picture was fading out, and a new scene was on the screen. There was a large college-type classroom, filled with students, all sitting in the stadium like seats. No one could see the professor who was teaching the class, but his voice still came over the television speakers.
" You see, when the dinosaurs went extinct, there was a very large gap to be filled. Before, there were bipedal carnivore hunters, smaller, bipedal ovivores - uh, that's the egg hunters. And there were herbivores large and small. There were dinosaurs, the pterosaurs, that dominated the skies, dinosaurs in the sea. In short, dinosaurs ruled every niche of the eco-system. Now, when they went extinct, there were very large shoes for the mammals to fill. (some of the students laughed) They had to become hunters, grazers, flyers, swimmers. And in the course of a few million years, they took over where the dinosaurs had left off.
" Now, what is happening now? In our world today? Because of mankind, animals are going extinct all over the world. We are running out of our hunters, our grazers, our swimmers. Soon, there won't be anymore animals left.
" Which is WHY mutants are rising in our gene pool. It's a natural evolutionary reaction - without all these niches being filled, we have to find ways to CHANGE to fit them. But what is happening is not what had happened in the past. Instead of hunters - we find that we have teleporters. Instead of grazers - we have mind readers. What does this mean? What direction will the mutants take the future of evolution? I for one, would like to find out."
The screen flickered once again, and returned to the normal news. The people surrounding Todd had hardly noticed that he had used his powers at all. Todd was breathing a little hard, a tinge of panic slowly ebbing away. That had been his father on the screen - giving a lecture to his biology class.
But that didn't answer any questions. How did he gain access to his father's memories? Was simple contact all that he needed? What had his dad meant when he said that Todd had no idea what they were planning to do? Who? And how did his dad know about it?
Todd tried to clear his mind and focus. *Okay, why would Dad be involved with something dealing with mutants?* Todd thought. He realized that his mind didn't just project images for no reason - he just saw why. His dad WANTED to know about mutants. What kinds of mutants would rise and dominate the planet. His dad was a biologist with a deep love of evolutionary theory. He WANTED to know what was going to happen.
But what did he mean when he said ' Do you know what they are planning to do?'
Who was his dad working with? What were THEY intending to do?
Todd turned away from the TV and continued walking. Sure, he got away with it that time, but he couldn't risk projecting anything on the television and getting caught. There was far too much anti-mutant sentiment in the air right now. He would have to try later.
*********
Adrian slowly opened his eyes. He never remember such a feeling as this. He couldn't concentrate on anything. It had taken him nearly an hour just to wake up. Every time he tried to string a few thoughts together, they got muddled and confused. Adrian didn't even realize that he was wearing a strange looking helmet that was preventing him from teleporting. He just couldn't concentrate.
Which meant that he couldn't teleport anywhere.
He winced at the pain that he felt - something between a headache and extreme sleep deprivation and a little bit of hunger. He couldn't even begin to wonder where he was. He just had to accept that he was there.
He looked around his surroundings - he was in a cell. He could clearly see through the walls, for they were merely bars. A few cells down, he could see Brit. She was huddled in a corner, crying.
" Brit!," Adrian called, but he felt a pang in his head. It hurt too much to talk, and he simply lay on the ground, holding his head.
" Adrian?," she asked - she had thought that he was still unconscious, " Are you awake?"
" Sort of," Adrian whispered back, once again, pain infiltrating his mind, " Can you see Rob?" After he said that, more pain dulled his concentration, and he vowed never to speak a word again.
" Yeah, he's okay," Brit said, and then pointed vaguely in one direction, " He's over there, he's in a big holding tank of water, but he looks okay." She sobbed for a second, " What are we doing here?"
That answer became clear soon enough. A far door was unlocked, and a whole mob of people came swarming out into the cell block. Some of them were wearing military uniforms, and who had enough medals to inhibit their ability to stand straight. Some of them were most obviously students - desperately scribbling down every word that was being said. One person lead the whole group - who was dressed smartly in a suit that made him appear much younger than he was. That man was Professor Craig Vincennes.
He seemed very much in his element - despite all the things that had happened in his life. He couldn't have been more thrilled. He was finally having an opportunity to do research work on mutants, something that his love of evolutionary theory had been begging for him to do. But there were some who thought that the idea of caging mutants and learning about them would be dangerous. Vincennes had to prove the importance of his work, or else he could say goodbye to his research grant, and also watch as his subjects were shipped off elsewhere - out to where Stryker was, where he had even worse plans for them.
Even if Vincennes had no qualms about keeping his own son here - even if he was so possessed by the desire to understand the mutation that was sweeping mankind - even if he would be emotionless as he did his research on children, he would do anything he could to prevent Stryker from possessing these specimens. In a sentimental way, Vincennes convinced himself that he couldn't be so cruel as to do that to his son.
" You see," Craig Vincennes began, " I think that Nature had this planned, perhaps, if such things are possible. Well, now take for example something like a trilobite -"
" What's a trilobite?," one of the people who were obviously not a student spoke up.
" An extinct arthropod," a student said over her notebook.
" A what?"
" An extinct type of insect," Professor Vincennes clarified.
" What does that have to do with mutants?," another military-looking guy growled.
" Let me explain. See, the trilobite has a very small brain -," Vincennes got cut off.
" You could have just used a stegosaurus," a student suggested.
" Okay, fine, imagine a stegosaurus. He has a very small brain. But it gave him everything that he needed. He didn't need a large brain - his brain was perfectly sized for his lifestyle. Eating, mating, fending off predators."
" Where is this going?," the growl-voiced military-looking guy said impatiently.
" Now people, we have very large brains, correct? Now, our whole brain gets nutrition, our whole brain receives the same electronic impulses - but we only use a small percentage of our brains. About the same amount as our friend stegosaurus. I mean, look at Adrian Nickels, here -"
Adrian gave them a dirty look as the mob of scientists turned in his direction.
" - What biological importance would teleporting have? Escaping from predators really becomes efficient. But where did this ability come from? Did this mutant have to be born with a different kind of organ in order to have the ability to teleport? Of course not, or else we'd be able to detect mutancy from birth. No, this mutation comes from the brain - and only during puberty does this reveal itself - through the increased rate of hormones that come in contact with the brain."
" So what you are saying is that everyone has the ability to be a mutant?"
" What I'm saying is that mutants are not a new phenomenon. Our brain's have not changed since the dawn of mankind, which means that we've always had these abilities. Perhaps there have been people using these mutant powers all through out our history and we've never even noticed. Every human on this planet right now has the ability to teleport or the ability to read minds. Yet so far, there hasn't been a need for mutants to exist in any ecosystem structures. But now, mutants are rising in records numbers. Why now? Why after all this time?
" Because, animals are going extinct - tigers, elephants, whales, birds, and through out the course of evolutionary history, there has never been one single dominating species on the planet. It just simply cannot happen. Homo sapiens are not meant to be the sole rulers of the world - and now, we could safely presume that each one of these mutants can be considered a NEW species, a cousin of mankind.
" Which is why it is so important to study them. To know where we are going in -"
The growled-voice military-looking guy interrupted, " Does this mean that we're going extinct?"
" Quite possibly," Vincennes started, and then corrected himself, " Well, yes, actually. Most likely, yes. I doubt very much if non-mutant people will be able to compete. Yet we are the coelacanth of the things to come, we have had our place in the shaping of life."
The military guy was quite put off by Vincennes poetic musings, " Are you siding WITH the mutants. I've heard that your son is one of them."
This made Adrian snap is head in attention.
" I'm simply a scientist," Vincennes explained, " I want to know what the future will bring."
The students all nodded and scribbled down in their notebooks, and Professor Vincennes lead them away from Adrian's cell. So is that why he was here? To test out some old man's theory? He rolled his eyes, but couldn't think on the matter much more.
His concentration was slipping.
***********
Professor Craig Vincennes had stayed late that night, even after all the other employees had left. He was alone. Somewhere else in the country at that very moment, the X-Men were listening to Magneto's plan of uniting against Stryker. But Vincennes knew nothing of this, or what their late night discussions would lead to.
At the moment, his eyes and attention were focused upon the motionless form of his son. He remembered the first time he had watched Rob actually staying alive under water. At that time, he was overcome with the fear that Rob would die.
Yet at the same time, he began to think. He had begun constructing a theory on WHY mutants were spreading across the country. He even began writing it that same night. He began teaching it a few days later in class. Craig was completely obsessed with the idea.
And fortunately, for him at least, his work gained much more prominent attention. There were people who became very interested in this theory of his, had offered him a job, had even offered to fetch him a few mutants if they could ever get the President to allow them to. Of course, Vincennes was well aware that his son would be in danger - but the opportunities a job like this could offer?
No longer would his work go by unnoticed. He could finally get his voice heard - his ideas on evolution, on biology, on why mutations were even happening.
And in the end, he cared far more about his work than his family.
His eyes looked over Rob one more time - he was kept constantly unconscious since his powers of convincibility were far too dangerous. Rob would never know what was going on. So in the end, Craig was in the clear, he was safe - when his work was done, Rob would be none the wiser. Rob would never know who had done this to him.
Or at least, that's what Craig was hoping. He had no idea what was in store for him in his future...
*********
Okay -that's the end of this chapter. Yeah, if no one can tell, I am a huge buff on evolution - Okay, the next chapter - Adrian finds a way to get everyone to escape - but someone mysterious has special plans for Rob (hint - check out my summary, right?) So, more action to come!!!!!!!!! Also, Todd will appear much more often in the chapters to come!
Next chappie up in a few days!
please review!
deke
