Oh god, I'm so sorry this took so long! Life went all crazy! Hope you guys like this one :-) Thanks for reading!
"It wasn't until I was a sophomore in High School that I thought I figured it out. I was so sure it would work, it just had to!"
Micky was still having trouble wrapping his mind around it. They told him we only use 10% of our brains. Whether or not this is true the notion of it was unacceptable to him. From the time he was a young boy in grade school, the thought of so much wasted brain power irked him. It was always lingering in the back of his mind. Years had passed and he still felt just as passionate about it. He wanted to find a way to tap into it.
Biology had been a big turning point for Micky. He found more detailed information on brain functions in his text book and dedicated himself to checking out every book in the library on neurobiology. He had to know everything! He memorized the anatomy of the brain and even knew what function each component was responsible for. He wanted to focus on the areas which controlled actions and reactions, motor function and sleep cycles. He also studied the workings of neurotransmitters, knowing that would be the key to the whole process. It took Micky almost the whole year to get his information down correctly. He made sure he knew where every inch of the brain was located and how it functioned. He spent every waking moment with his nose in a science book.
The big experiment idea came to him when they were studying Ben Franklin's key/lightning experiment. If Franklin can learn to harness electricity, I bet I can use it to somehow manipulate brain function. After all the brain does use electrical pulses to transmit messages in the first place, it's just got to work. I know it will! When he set his mind to something that was it, this was going to be the biggest and most dangerous experiment he had ever taken on. He couldn't wait to put it into action; he just needed the right equipment.
Micky had formulated the idea in his mind that, instead of attaching a key to a kite, he could attach electrodes to his head and feed the energy from a lightning storm directly to his neurons by overloading his neurotransmitters, in effect speeding productivity and capacity in his own brain. He knew it sounded crazy, but that's what people always said when someone was on the brink of a great scientific discovery. I'll show them all!
By this time he had also collected an impressive (or maybe just obsessive) amount of equipment he may need, some of it coming from dubious sources. He was no longer allowed to visit the lab after school hours, though they never were able to link him with anything. Micky would never just outright steal, especially from the school that had gotten him this far in the first place. Now, if someone else chose to steal and just happened to be selling something Micky needed, then that was a different story. Hey you gotta do what you gotta do. It's all in the name of science!
…
"Now wait a minute here Micky, are you trying to tell me that you stole a bunch of science equipment?"
"NO! Mike, what kinda guy do you take me for?! …I may have just purchased merchandise that may or may not have been lifted from the schools science lab."
"Micky would never steal," Peter cut in, "How could you think he would?"
Davy squeezed Peter shoulder, "He doesn't think that Peter, Mike's just looking out for Micky like he would for any of us." This seemed to calm Peter a little, but he still looked like he was on the brink of tears at the thought of Mike thinking Micky a thief.
"That's right shotgun, I just wanna make sure Micky did things the right way. And while his methods may not be completely ethical, he still went about it in the most honest way he could."
"Besides, I'm not the one that got arrested for it," Micky grinned.
Mike rolled his eyes, Davy just placed his head in his hands and Peter sat there, mouth agape, hanging on Micky's every word.
"How did you even find this person who was selling such questionable merchandise?"
"…well. You see it's like this, there's a market for everything in high school. Drugs, alcohol, test answers, there's always someone whose got what you need. It's supply and demand. A friend of mine just happened to be in the business of science equipment."
Mike let out a deep sigh. More cryptic answers, that can't be a good thing. "Do I even want to know why?" He wasn't so sure he did.
"Probably not, so you want me to finish the story or not?"
"Well I just hope your little misadventures in black market lab equipment are over, but yes I'd like to know what mad-scientist scheme you came up with."
"Ok, so where was I… Oh yeah! So I had finally collected all the necessities…"
…
Micky worked feverishly every night after school down in the basement, trying to construct a device that would not only conduct electricity, but harness it and direct it. It took him 5 months of building and re-building to finally come up with a concept he was happy with. He had attached electrodes to the inside of his mother's metal colander, feeding the wires though the perforations and configuring them to a car antenna that he had sticking straight up from the middle. A second set of wires were then attached to a circuit breaker and switch board where he would be able to control the path of the electrical current.
He figured he would focus the electrical energy into his hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and cerebellum, that way he could use it to increase motor function, control actions and reactions and manipulate the cycles of his physiological state. Meaning he could respond to external stimuli with quicker more precise movements, override his brains inhibitory signals, and control his internal bodily functions to cater to his needs. If this works I could win the next Nobel Prize!
