Thanks to Sarcasmisinmyblood, LRW, Casey Storm, and AlienGhostWizard14 for your reviews last chapter!

thewriterswayoflife provided the prompt for today's entry. It's an origin story for Adam and Chase and is a company fic to day three's entry, "The Ballerina". Thank you so much for this!

Onto day fifteen!


/day fifteen/

Prompt: (from thewriterswayoflife) origins

Featured LR character: Douglas


"The Scientist"


Pre-Lab Rats. This is necessary, if they are to be the best.


Though there are a few flaws in them, he is satisfied with the way they are built.

This admiration he feels is not out of some emotional attachment. He does not love these children, does not love these things he has created, as others might insist he should. They are only part of his plan, a part of his goal to make advancements in the field of technology and biology. They are also meant to serve as living proofs of his skills and abilities to potential backers and sponsors.

They are only a means to an end – nothing more, nothing less.

However, to a degree, he does care about their well-being. These children are his investments, and he cannot afford to let anything happen to them. They are also resources that he cannot afford to waste. After all, not many people are as appreciative of scientific endeavors as he is and therefore are not willing to expend what is necessary in things like this, namely, children.

He doesn't understand it, other people's affection towards their young. It's not as if the world will not compensate for the number of children lost. A baby is born almost every second. Why hold these resources back?

He knows he's not hypocritical in this regard because he has given what are his own for the sake of this project. He doesn't want to take full responsibility of these boys. He barely even considers them as a part of him. He just provided what is necessary to form them. That doesn't give him ownership, at least not in the way that ordinary and overly sentimental people think it does.

The first subject was crafted a year after the plans for bionic chips was completed and perfected. An intern in the company who was in dire need of cash and who, after being introduced to it, supported the project had agreed to be the surrogate for the child. The fertilization was done and completed outside, using resources from a nameless female donor whose medical history was impressive and thus assured a higher chance of producing a healthy offspring. To complement it, he engineered his own brother's DNA to use it as the other half of that and to begin the process. He knew there was a chance that Donald could discover what he was doing, and so he did that to insure that the progress wouldn't be terminated prematurely.

After all, he didn't think his older brother would have the guts to get rid of his own child.

The baby was born a little over after eight months, and the child turned out to be a boy. There were a few complications because the term was not completed but overall, he was healthy. He screamed on top of his lungs and craved much attention, which he found neither from his surrogate mother nor his 'uncle.'

Before he began implanting the bionic chip, he was able to get a good look at the baby. There are some features on him that he definitely got from his mother, but most of it he got from Donald.

He had smiled at that. He wondered if his brother would be able to see it when this subject grows up.

A year afterwards, he was able to get another resource from a young woman, a dancer whose dreams had pushed her straight into his path. The second child is a girl. During the second subject's development inside her mother, he began noticing that the chip he had created for the first subject wasn't as flawless as he had hoped. Repeated scans and tests have showed that the pressure from the chip had put some strain on the boy's nervous system. He had feared that it would cripple the subject but thankfully, it didn't. The boy was resilient, and though from the results it showed that there's a high chance that his ability to obtain information would be somewhat impaired, he didn't mind. As long as he doesn't lose the investment, he was fine with cutting his losses.

Or, at least, the child's losses.

Either way, he didn't really care.

He was able to make a few improvements in the second subject's chip, but months afterwards, he discovered that he could make a much better version – and he did. The only problem was the lack of a subject to install it in. For months, he waited. He even risked being found out by his brother by branching out to people that could potentially alert him to this project. However, it bore no fruit.

In this time of desperation, he found an opportunity. One of his closest associates had told him that an aspiring young scientist, who had only been working at the company for a year then, had taken a liking to him. As the days rolled by, his observations showed the truthfulness in what was revealed to him. She was pleasant, and through minute but visible cues he could tell that she did feel something for him. He tested just how strong that emotion was by paying her more attention, by pretending that he, too, was interested in returning what she was expressing to him, and that was when he found out that her admiration for him was durable enough that, if he nurtured it, she would do whatever he requested of her.

He knew very little about love. He had been in a relationship once, with a girl that he thought liked him back, but that didn't work. Still, he had enough information about it to be able to successfully emulate an environment of mutualism between him and the young scientist.

It took longer than he had thought. Mallory, or Mal, was an intelligent woman, and she was able to see through his false intentions. The lack of sincerity pushed her away from him, and soon he found himself struggling to pursue her. He did what he could to convince her that he felt something towards her even if he didn't. That still wasn't enough. It took him fooling himself, pretending he was in love with her, to make it realistic.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere within that time, the deception became too great that the lie became the truth.

He fell in love with her.

That was when she began reciprocating his affections. Soon, what she felt for him became full and even overflowed that when he recalled his real purpose of being with her and brought that proposal to the table, she willingly took it and followed him. She did what he asked.

Ten months after their spur-of-the-moment wedding, the third subject came – and it's a boy.

Holding the child in his arms and seeing himself reflected in it caused him to have second thoughts about the project. He began considering that maybe, he should discontinue it. Maybe he should let the subjects be children and give them to families who would let them be that. That was what he began wanting for the boy then sleeping soundly in his arms, to be a child. And, maybe, he could test how it would be to be a father and find out for himself why it was so sensationalized.

However, after receiving a much better job offer at a huge corporation overseas and after seeing the greater accomplishments of her peers, Mal suddenly snapped out of the dream-like life they lived, and soon, she lost the love she had for her husband and her son. One night, she was in tears as she told him that this wasn't what she wanted anymore. He tried to convince her that she was just worn out and was only frustrated because of their new duty as parents, but she didn't seem to listen. He held her in his embrace as they slept to let her know he was there and that she didn't have to shoulder the negative emotions alone, but, when he woke up, she wasn't there anymore.

He looked for her around their new apartment, but the only thing he found was the two-worded note sitting on top of the coffee table. I'm sorry, she said through her writing.

She had left them, and until now she hasn't showed any interest in coming back.

He realized then that he, too, had fooled himself. A wife, a child, and a new apartment do not make up the life he wanted. That path is full of illogicality and unpredictability, and he didn't want that. It angered him as he came to understand the fact that he had been foolish enough to wander off to this road.

However, when he saw the boy – the subject – that afternoon, he realized that he had still accomplished something: he had a resource to use for the new chip, and that had been the goal all along.

And so, he reverted back to his original plan. He installed the chip in the third subject and until now is still watching the progress. The boy is showing much promise, with his tiny system responding well to the modified technology in him.

It delights him to know that all of them are on track with his plan. He only needs to wait a few more months to test the bionic chips, and that, to him, is good.

From time to time, he finds himself running into minor obstacles. The oldest boy, at one point, had begun viewing him as his father, and so did the girl, but he quickly corrected that. He told them the truth, that they had no parents and was only here as a part of an experiment. They do not understand this, but then again he doesn't expect them to. At least not this quickly. However, they will soon enough, if he tells them repeatedly. They might feel hurt, but it's not his responsibility to spare their feelings.

Not that they would rely on emotions anyways. When they're old enough, he will activate the app in their chips, and after that they will not feel anything anymore. All that they would be concerned with are following commands.

He looks at the three one by one, but he focuses on the first and the third, the beginning and the success. Through the glass, he still sees it clearly, his brother and himself, in the features of these two boys.

However, his heart is hollow of any emotions. He's numb and indifferent. These are what he needs to be since these are what he needs to teach them.

This is necessary, anyways, if they are to be the best.


Reviews are appreciated. :)