God Said Bang (Shizuochan & Jays)

Jays

Olives and Fear
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  2. Primarily Prefer Male
CHAPTER I - THE MADNESS OF DREAMS

Conversations quieted and died down as Professor Jones entered the lecture hall. His footsteps echoed loudly in the barely populated room as he approached the front desk and set his backpack on it, taking his time. Andrew could see a couple of first-rowers exchanging nervous glances and double checking their notes. Henry Jones had that effect on most students.

The half-bald scraggly-bearded professor pulled a clipboard from his pack - Andrew could catch glimpses of a list of student names on it - cleared his throat and turned toward the rest of the room. Sunlight streamed through the high open windows and bathed the lecture hall golden, throwing shadows of dancing leaves onto freshly painted wooden desks and the attentive faces of the seventeen students present.

"Well, moment of truth." Professor Jones' voice was rough and resonating, but his British accent was precise and clipped, making for an odd and jarring combination. "I had hoped that you all would be ready, but I see that that is not the case." His eyes moved through the faces and locked on two second-rowers who were exchanging notes, both of whom froze like deers in headlights. The moment dragged on for a few seconds too long until the professor cleared his throat again making the two students jumped, before sheepishly dropping their hands and rotated to sit in rigid straight-back poses, visible sweat trickling down their forehead.

"Right." Said Professor Jones. "I will give you 10 minutes to come to an actual decision." He emphasized "actual" as if it was a concept he found incredulous.

Andrew could feel beads of sweat on his own face, albeit not from the idea of being under Jones' attention. His eyes dropped to the two stacks of paper in front of him, one several pages long and filled with notes and the other a single line of text on an empty sheet. Two choices. Any sane, logical person would know exactly which to choose. Still, his eyes kept dragging itself back to the single line on the blank sheet even as his mind begged him to just, drop it. The clock on the wall ticked awfully loud in his head like drumbeats. And he had thought today would be simple.

Andrew woke up that morning full of energy. The semester was drawing to a close, and the summer air was fresh and bright and saturated with life. He was early, the dorm still completely quiet and Matt still snoring lightly when he rolled out of bed. The sun had partially risen above the horizon, glimpses of it peaking over the treetops across campus.

May had always been his favourite time of the year, not only due to the weather but because in one week, he would be able to go home. Plus, that morning his schedule was clear except for Professor Jones' Comprehensive Science Seminar. The professor was notorious among students for being strict and unforgiving when it comes to work standard, but Andrew was one of the few who wasn't terribly afraid of Jones. Not that he was one of Jones' star pupils or anything, there had been less of those than he could count on the fingers of one hand since the man started working at UoC. He was just always prepared.

That morning however was not just any lecture. They would be presenting their topics for the Graduating Thesis next semester, and depending on whether or not the professor was happy with it, would either skip and whistle happily all the way home, or throw away all of their preparation and spend the next month coming up with new pitches until Jones grudgingly accept one. One could, of course, insist on keeping their original topic, it is ultimately the student's choice, but nobody in the history of Jones' career at UoC had dared taking that option. Andrew never really considered any other scenario happening to him than the first. He had his picked out and well-researched, several pages more than necessary. Some students dreaded the occasion, but he wasn't too worried.

Andrew got dressed and packed his bag as quietly as he could, trying not to disturb Matt. His roommate hated having his sleep bothered. It was when going through his shelf searching for a reference text that his eyes found and latched onto a thick hardcover book, looking nondescript with its simple blue and white back, but he noticed it all the same. Its title read: Genetic Microbiological Hereditary Evolution, by Dr. Henry J. Powell. His father had given him that book for his 14th birthday, the Doctor's very first published work, written when he was only 25. A small breakthrough in the field of Evolutional Science, but a breakthrough nonetheless. Henry J. Powell was then hailed as one of the most promising rising stars of his time, and he went on to earn that title many times over.

Only 25. Andrew was almost 25. At his age, his father was already a few years into research, with enough material to be published. His finger traced the book's hard back, and a shadow of profound startlement entered his eyes. What had he done with his life?

For the very first time, Andrew Powell really asked himself that question. What had he accomplished? His academic results had always been solid, sure, but did that mean anything at all? His father published a major book at 25. He was a poor student, attending UoC on a full scholarship, and within the course of his five-years studies taught himself one of the most difficult fields of science to a high enough degree as to make a breakthrough. Andrew's family was wealthy, he was exposed to science at 7 years old and had been accumulating knowledge and experience from one of the greatest minds in the world for 16 years. And what had he accomplished?

His eyes travelled from his father's substantially-sized book to the pathetically few thesis research notes in his hand. He had felt a small measure of pride while working on them because he had prepared more than everyone else, and more than he had to. Just thinking about it made his face flush red. What an utter joke.

Andrew spent his entire morning preclass staring at his father's book. He had thought following his usual routine and meeting friends would break him out of that state of mind, but of course it didn't. He sat alone at his usual table, nodding and greeting everyone he knew, but they could sense that something was off with him and all politely left him in peace. The cafeteria was loud and obnoxious, as any College cafeteria at 9 in the morning would be, but in his head all he could hear was the book's short biography screaming at him. Rising star. Genius. Breakthrough. 25.

Slowly, inexorably, something poisonous and infectious formed in his mind. The first hint of a dangerous and insane idea starting to take root. The words still beat at his brain, hammering the nail in deeper. Breakthrough. 25.

Without conscious thought, his hands moved by themselves, tearing a blank page out of his notebook and began to write a single line. Andrew looked down in surprise at his own writing, the unthinkable notion given physical form. It was then that he realize the idea wasn't instantaneous, but had already been lurking in his head for a long time. He had considered it before, wondered, speculated, but never in a serious manner. Yet somehow it had managed to worm its way into his subconsciousness and merged with the insanity provoked by that morning's contemplation into a blue line of text on a sheet of paper. If he had any sense, he would have discarded the paper right then and there and forget ever considering of such crazy thoughts.

But somehow, Andrew found himself at the lecture with the clock ticking, looking down at it. This is madness, he thought. What the hell am I doing? Yet he couldn't take his eyes or his mind off it. Never in a million years would he thought he would actually consider something so profoundly ridiculous.

Andrew chewed on his lips nervously, an old habit he had never quite managed to fix, and poked Matt who was sitting next to him looking bored out of his mind in the rib.

"Hey. What's your Thesis topic?"
 
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“Better than yours.” It was a joke, of course, but sometimes it felt as if Matthew Holler’s vocal cords had never quite grown accustomed to humor. The quip felt unnatural, the masked surgeon cracking wise before the incision. And every so often, he was aware of the thin veneer cracking and slowly rotting away, “Just kidding.”

He regarded the tenuous paper layers that held all those pretty little words, immaculately constructed phrases and strategically placed jargon. Times New Roman road-maps that drifted, and turned, and circled in and around itself, and led absolutely nowhere. Crafted with the empty, just-good-enough verve and craft to impress the bright-eyed, freshman girls who frequented the student center diner bar; and not nearly enough to make the Prof’s cut.

Which, to be fair, Matthew expected.

He let the papers bend in ill-advised ways as he waved them in front of Andrew’s face, “Something - or another - ‘bout the relevance theory, mapping the brain to predict the ways someone’ll answer, say, a survey or a multiple choice question. Deciphering how they parse through what’s relevant, and what’s not. Shit like that.”

Smart. Not entirely unexplored territory, but enough space to expound upon, a niche within the niche to carve out for himself. If Matthew had spent any appropriate amount of effort in the proposal, it may have even been enough. But that unexplored research space eluded him, and his proposal was more wordy than persuasive. Matthew was pacing himself.

Just a few more months, and something that he really wanted would present itself. Or it wouldn’t, and all of this would just crash and burn. Just as well.

What interested him in the moment, however, was what Andrew had scrawled down - that singular line that rested astride the probably-perfectly-exceptional thesis Andrew had likely conjured. He pointed to it, his curiosity lending his tone a probing, almost mischievous interest, “What’s that? You passing notes, loverboy?”
 
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Better than yours, he said. That made Andrew's stomach twisted in strangling discomfort. Matt had meant it as a joke, of course, but the possibility of it coming true was almost all-consuming. Matt's topic was no surprise, his work had always been average at best if he couldn't get his interest up. They had always been completely different, the two of them, but always predictable to one another. So be predictable, Andrew told himself, be who you have always been.

He felt feverish, dizzyingly detached, the idea's hook sinking in ever deeper with agonizing deliberation. The room churned before his eyes, swirling distorted vision that blended all sound and color into a kaleidoscopic cacophony. Andrew thought he was going to throw up or faint, and not necessarily in that order. What was going on with him today? Not only was he actually considering doing something utterly ridiculous, but now he was getting physically ill. He almost didn't hear Matt's teasing question.

"This? This is...uhm...just something I'm..." He shifted his body to cover it out of a sudden shame. "...it's nothing." That was making it worse. Andrew never stuttered. He probably should have shown Matt the damn thing and told him the stupid idea, and together they can laugh it off as some rebellious but ultimately harmless urge. He could still do it and end this madness.

Professor Jones chose that moment to slam his clipboard onto his desk with a loud bang, making half the students in the room jumped almost out of their seats.

"Time's up." said the Professor with a note of finality. "It's time to declare your thesis." That sent the entire lecture hall into an uneasy silence save for the occasional nervous swallowing or fidgeting.

"A final word before we start. I have instructed this course for seven years and supervised hundreds of students on their thesis. So trust me when I say, playing it safe and close to the ground often results in stricter and much more critical evaluation by the Board, and also will not be an asset for you in your future endeavours, just as you will gain no favour being overly ambitious. You should find something you are confident in, but not so much that it will offer no advancement to your experience. Now..." He fixed the student nearest to him on the first row - a Cancer Cellular major guy by the name of Lucas - with a penetrating gaze and a wilting smile "...Mr. Ryan, please start us off."

Lucas anxiously consulted his notes a few seconds too long, the Professor's speech had clearly shaken whatever confidence he had on his preparation.

"Containing Lymphoma through Strategic Viral injection." Finally, he declared his topic with a tone that sounded as if he had nearly raised his voice at the end into a question. Jones was quiet for a few moments, and the entire room waited to see if he would give Lucas "the stare" he was so famous for - a raise of his left eyebrow and a lift of one corner of his lips into a nearly imperceptible sneer while the other corner drooped in a frown, a look that said I am decidedly not amused, and maybe you can repeat that? - but he finally put out his hand, and Lucas dropped his notes on it with an audible sigh of relief. The Professor dropped those onto his desk and turned to the next person in line. "Ms. Leneé?"

"Adrenal inducers and their effect on Hereditary Genetics." The blue-haired Kathy Leneé said almost proudly, offering her substantially-sized notes even before being asked. Translation of said topic: how sex affects the resulting kids. Kathy was a strange person, she had always been fascinated with sex and anything social norms considered taboo, and had managed to turn those into topics for almost every single course she had taken. Usually, lecturers found her interest and point of view odd and refreshing enough to give her the go-ahead. This time, however, she faced Jones. He looked from her notes to her eager expression, and fixed her with "the stare". Kathy's hands slowly lowered, her face dropped and her enthusiasm drained right out of her. She seemed to withered under the full force of Jones' gaze, until he eventually moved on, leaving behind a Kathy at the verge of tearing up.

Hormonal Hereditary traits, Immunological evolution and Behavioural Neuroscience were all accepted, while Thyroid Removal Application, C-section as a cause for cancer and Alcohol-based alternative for Doping all received "the stare", and the students who suggested those topics completely deflated, resigned to an extra month or two of research. One by one, Professor Jones worked through the ranks of students with relentless efficiency. Andrew and Matt were the furthest from the front, mostly because of Matt's unwillingness to ever be called on for class exercises.

"Mr. Powell," approached Jones at last, his eyes already expectantly focusing on Andrew's stack of neatly clipped and titled preparations, and put his hand out even before Andrew could answer. He had been consistently top of the class, so Jones knew what to expect of him as much as Andrew knew to expect of himself.

But that day, he was far from being himself. His voice sounded far away, like he was in a dream: "Deusifin."

The students had gotten back to whispering quietly between themselves, but all conversations now abruptly stopped, as did any shuffling of chairs or scratching of pen on paper, as everyone turned to look at him. Jones stopped dead in his track, an expression of bafflement stealing over his features.

"I'm afraid..." he said carefully, a note of warning in his tone, "...that you will need to elaborate."

"A study into the existence and production of Deusifiin and its capability to unlock human potential." The voice was decidedly not his, now, far too calm for the turmoil he felt inside, far too insane for Andrew Powell.

Seventeen pairs of eyes flicked between Jones and Andrew, their faces mixtures of disbelief, amusement and glee at another's expense. Jones' however, after a brief pause clouded over into an emotion rarely seen on him, anger.

"Mr. Powell..." said the Professor, fury barely disguised in his tone, "...this is not nearly as funny as you think it is." Jones, of course, thought he was being mocked, because what else could it be? Deusifin. The God stimulant. It was a myth, an urban legend spread by seniors to trick gullible juniors, or wistful imagining of superhero-addicted students. And it had absolutely no place in a serious course deciding someone's graduating thesis from a prestigious University of top level science.

Jones' eyes locked onto Andrew's and bore down on him with the weight of his presence and temper, and Andrew met that gaze unflinchingly, all the while howling silently in his mind, trying to reign back his insanity to no avail.

The bell rang, once, twice, three times. A chair scraped back but nobody moved.

Finally, Andrew broke the gaze and stood up, marching out of the room to the Professor fuming and glaring daggers into his back.

As he stepped out into the hall, he could hear students hesitantly getting up, and Jones turning on Matt, his voice low and dangerous. "Did you put him up to this?"

Everyone knew he and Matt were close, and on any other day it would have been likely, or even true. But Andrew's self-destructive trance was a far more persuasive perpetrator that day. Suddenly feeling bile rising to his throat, Andrew Powell clutched his stomach and rushed into a nearby bathroom to retch his guts out.
 
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That was unusual, to say the least.

Matthew had always viewed the brilliant scientist-aspirants of the University as entities distinct and unaffiliated with his one self, despite their shared educational backgrounds. His own brand of sloth made him lesser in comparison to, say, Andrew, in the eyes of pretty much anyone who could call themselves half-way respectable. Yet his own sloth made him adept at observing - in some ways, he was the tv-binging couch potato of social interaction.

In any case, something was horrifically “up” with Andrew.

And in another relevant case, science folk could be shockingly close-minded. Granted, Matthew didn’t view the thousands-upon-thousands of dollars that went into their respective educations in the most pragmatic light, but where was the harm in letting the son of a genius tread into… some extraordinary new territory. Loathe as he was to concede to his own involuntary functions, Matthew flushed.

The God juice? Really?

“Yes.” Matthew regarded jones with sardonic humor. This was Andrew, after all, and tenured professor or not, you didn’t fuck with Matthew’s only friend. “I made him say that, as a prank. Got you good, prof.”

Matthew wasn’t even particularly indignant on Andrew’s behalf, but Jones’ glower was still so very delicious.

And then he left, without even offering Jones a cursory look into his own thesis. That wasn’t important right now. Andrew was out there somewhere, distraught, and probably with some feverish ideation of being wiped off the face of the earth. Besides, Jones was so taken by anger that he had hardly inquired after him, although he could feel the death-glare radiating away at his back.

Megan of the thoroughly-thought-out-thesis-and-playing-it-safe-mentality had been kind enough to point towards the general direction of the men’s bathroom. Unprompted, it struck him as somewhat presumptuous; did she think they were attached at the hip?

He strolled in to the sounds of glorious retching. Wonderful.

“You okay? You didn’t inject any like…” Matthew’s voice trailed off slightly, as he began to realize how inappropriately timed his joke was. He finished it nonetheless; a train with a full head of a steam. “... Deusifin and get sick, right?



Do you wanna talk about what happened there?”
 
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Andrew stopped retching for long enough to shoot Matt a withering glare for his god-awful timing and choice of humor. Rising, still queasy and feeling like absolute shit, he walked to the sink and washed his face with cold water, trying to rid himself of the shakiness in his limbs and the pounding headache he knew was coming. The person who looked back at him from the mirror was someone he didn't recognized, bloodshot eyes and a half-panicked half-crazed look met his gaze through the reflective surface.

His left fingers started to tap his leg rhythmically the way they did when he was so nervous or lost in thought as to let the carefully crafted mask of control slowly peeled open.

"That was stupid. Extremely stupid. So fucking stupid." Andrew never swore, or talked repetitively. That was a bad sign. "Maybe...maybe if I go back there and tell Jones it was just a stupid joke..." he said quietly, almost like he was talking to himself. "...no, no, the damage's already been done. Fuck!"

Abruptly, he turned on Matt as if suddenly remembering he was there, and grabbed his roommate by his shoulder as if clutching a newfound lifeline.

"Matt! You'll help me with this, right? I can't do it alone. We're going to make history, you and I. You'll help me, right?" And as if afraid of hearing no, he brushed pass Matt to the bathroom door, already furiously planning and brainstorming ideas, completely taking for granted both Matt's answer and the fact that his friend had his own thesis to work on.

Andrew was clearly in a precarious state of mind, high off adrenalin and possessed by twenty years of stored up daydreaming and ambition boiling over. Perhaps it would only take someone to tell him no, to forcefully make him stop for a moment to think, to break him out of the madness.
 
There was, as Matthew knew it, an objectively correct course of action here. Andrew was in delirium, his bloodshot eyes fixed in a werewolf’s famished gaze, and any particular commitments made were the product of a fever dream, as opposed to the rationality of the scientist. A good friend, Matthew thought, would probably tell him to cool his head with a glass of cold water, take a rest, and evaluate his options at a later date. At the very least, a good friend would at least broach the matter of his topic being very much unapproved, and that his work would go for naught, academia-wise.

Unless, of course, Andrew wanted to be one of those darkhorse visionary types, who made their bones after dropping out. ‘Good’ friends seldom had the guts to live with the fact that what they did or said next could play into a decision as life-changing as that.

Matthew chased Andrew out of the bathroom, his mind thoroughly decided. He had never really had the makings of a good friend; he was more the remora clinging to the underbelly of a shark.

“Andy, Andy, Andy. Prof didn’t even look at mine, so it’s not like I got much else to do. Tell me all about it, man.”

What were ‘good friends’ for?
 
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"Good, good." Breathing a sigh of relief, Andrew settled into a brisk walk down the hall, passing by muttering students who regarded him and by extension Matt with looks of horror. The cool fresh air outside and the beautiful midday sun did nothing to clear his mind, and his pace across the campus back towards their dorm room never slowed.

"We're going to do this. We're really going to do this." muttered Andrew, more to himself then to Matt. Ideas swirled around in his head, possible theses offered then quickly rejected, and a vague but rapidly forming train of thoughts started to coalesce. It wasn't much, but he clung on to it like a drowning man.

"Alright, first problem. Deusifin doesn't exist."
 
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Andrew's newfound reputation as 'mad scientist' seemed to proceed him already, which perhaps made Matthew the Frankenstein-monster that accompanied him, or the beleaguered and deformed assistant with the hunched back. That struck Matthew as wholly unfair, and in response he regaled the lot of them with a cavalier grin and the full extension of his middle-most fingers. Gossip and staring were for the high-school crowd, and if they wanted to engage in such behavior, he'd respond in kind.

He allowed his middle-fingers to drop when Andrew dropped his latest bombshell, "... that's kind of troll, really? What do you mean, exactly? You got an alternative in mind?"
 
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"Deusifin doesn't exist as a tangible object, or substance. At least, not that I know of." Excitement saturated Andrew's tone, his hand gesturing wildly to punctuate his points. "No, Deusifin is an idea. It's a daydream, a hopeful belief that we, as human, are capable of extraordinary feats, that we can break through our limits to become more than this. It is the faraway star we aim our spaceships at, it is the dawn over the mountain peak we climb to witness." In a way, he had his own Deusifin, his own demon whispering to him that he could be so much more that what he was.

"No, the God juice doesn't exist. But we can make it exist. We can find our own Deusifin. We will." Conviction pumped through Andrew's veins like a drug, empowering, intoxicating. "And I know where we can start." He was not alone in this, and somehow, in a strange way, that gave him more strength that his crazy dream did.

Throwing open their dorm room with a loud bang, Andrew only stopped long enough throw his bag onto his bed before diving into the pile of neatly stacked and organized file boxes in his corner of the room, carelessly throwing many aside to reach the one in the back. The box he pulled out and slammed onto his table looked nondescript, the title-sheet on its side only read "E.O." in hastily written permanent marker.

Taking a deep, shaky breath in a vain attempt to calm his nerves, Andrew cast the lid aside and started to withdraw stacks of paper, printed online articles, cut out newspaper sections, independently published studies, decades old to as recent as 16 months speculative and proposed alternative scientific discussions. An assortment of sources with varying degree of reliability and relevance, but they all shared similar topics and ideas, that of extraordinary events and possibilities. If he had found the collection to be in anyone else's possession, Andrew would have instantly marked them to be a conspiracist. But it had been his, gathered since he was 12 until a year before.

"I always knew this day would come." Andrew carried a trace of quiet hysteria, as if he was speaking more to himself than Matt. "I collected many of these from my dad any chance I got. He usually throws them away and never give them a second glance. He is too busy with his current work to consider any new idea, he said, but I know he despises anything not triply proven or published by major publishers." He had read through every single one of the papers he had put in the box, and most of them proposed interesting and, to a degree, reasonable theories. But that's all they were, theories, and some too farfetched and baseless even for him. Still, he had faithfully collected them without fail, until he was finally swallowed by the the increasing schoolwork.

"You have heard of mothers lifting cars to save their children, or priests healing people with faith, and the like?"
 
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“Uh-huh. Like, how, when I was a kid, whenever I heard my mom’s footsteps up the stairs, my wrist speed would go full superhuman.”

And for a while, his head was lolling in barely restrained mirth, some mental block preventing him from realizing his friend’s severity. ‘I always knew this day would come’, like the prodigal son, some heralded subject of prophecy. Yet Matthew found less enjoyment in his whimsical, tactless humor then he normally did, and he found himself flushing in the wake of Andrew’s hysteria. All those whispers, that virulent, feverish intensity.

Yes, Andrew really had meant it, didn’t he?

Awesome.

“... yes… skeptics laugh at the thought of the latter, and as for the former phenomena, there’s never really been anything… more than tenuous theories.” Matthew stopped himself there, before remarking again in almost carefully weighted idleness, “... what’s the ‘E.O’ stand for?”
 
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"Extra Ordinary." Andrew's tone held a lingering note of serenity, almost reverent. It troubled him, how much the very idea of it had taken over his passion, but Andrew didn't stop long enough to contemplate.

"Now, I have a theory. Well, half of a theory. Maybe less. Maybe a fraction. Somewhere to start, at least." He started selecting specific articles, one, two, five, even more. The motion felt familiar, magnetic, like he had done it a thousand times before.

"These, they are more than the usual rumours. These people..." he picked out relevant paragraphs and pointed at them excitedly, "...reportedly showed signs of lasting effect after their life-altering events, although often only for a week or a month. Their symptoms -- if you can call them that -- weren't unanimous, one guy -- this guy -- somehow shocked and paralyzed the robber who stabbed him, it says here the robber lost half of his body functions, his nerves were severely damaged. This other guy, he jumped from one roof to another 300 feet away when his building was on fire. 300 feet! Police didn't even bother to come up with an explanation! All of these people, every single one of them, did something that was impossible! Do you see? This is our direction, this is where we're finding our Deusifin!"

Andrew's hands were in the air, closing and relaxing repeatedly while half flung above his head in a craze. He could not control himself any longer, and at some point he had stopped trying. In fact, he felt liberated, because finally he was able to discuss with someone his secret obsession with a slight, minuscule chance that he would be taken seriously.

"Now, tell me, what do they all have in common?" Andrew asked, but in his excitement he pushed ahead anyway without waiting for an answer.

"They all experienced stress! Severe, death-knocking life-threatening stress! That's the only common denominator, the only thing they all shared. I checked everything else as best I could, nothing else showed. Now, that may very well just be an baseless assumption, but something tells me it's not, and that something is..." Spinning on his heels, Andrew dug around his desk and came up with even more documents, this time much more well-kept and organized, "...right here."

Proudly, like a mother presenting their baby for the first time, he slapped the documents on the table in front of Matthew.

"It was a nice theory I had, sure, but I couldn't prove anything, not even to myself. Until this arrived, I'm pretty sure it was one of my dad's old students thinking he had all the answers. My dad of course threw it out the second he saw it, I was lucky I noticed it in his bin before the housekeeper came. Now, if you look here..." Opening the package, he traced with his fingers down the form of what appeared to be a posthumous examination document of one Kevin Mostran, "...right here, it says his body was normal except for an abnormally swollen Adrenal gland. That's how he died, his Adrenal gland was so swollen, it constricted his already damaged livers -- he had a history -- and basically shut them down. But there was no apparent cause, none of the usual signs, and believe me the pathologist checked. I made sure to ask. But, get this, his Perditia gland showed signs of past functions!"

Expecting confusion, Andrew forged ahead without slowing or leaving the time for his audience to even catch up with his train of thought: "You've probably never heard about, nobody actually does. I only know about it because it was one of my father's old published work a few years back. Basically, his theory was that it is some leftover vestigiality, similar to the Appendix. Hell, it's so insignificantly small and half-patched onto the Adrenal gland anyway, nobody ever cared or even noticed it. It was just dad's side project for a while when he had nothing else going. The point is, do you see it, Matt? Do you see it? The only abnormality in the body of a man who could do impossible thing, tied directly to the one body part that's triggered by immense stress! Do you see what I see?" He was practically dancing at this point, his entire body shaking from enthusiasm. He was right, he knew it, felt it in his bones. He tasted the rightness, without a single thread of doubt, now that he had finally said it out loud. And by God did it feel good.
 
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@Jays

Somewhere along the way, Matthew lost track of the details. Andrew hadn’t exactly gone malfunctioning-Rosetta-Stone on him; the concepts, the ideas were presented simply enough, conclusions buoyed by leaps of faith and sheer vigorous persistence. It was the latter which captured his attentions, the scientist-aspirant making his case for a career as, in turns, orchestra conductor and ballerina through his impassioned gesticulations. He had found his truest calling, perhaps, or maybe his mid-life crisis had come to him thirty, forty years too early.

Even swept away by Andrew’s energy, Matthew could spot holes that Andrew had neglected to explain - then again, any pseudo-intellectual slash actual-idiot on the street would have likely sensed the opportunity to yell, raving mad, “Causation!? Causation!? Causation?! Causation?!” ad infinitum. The part of him that lived for the more insidious, crueler pleasures in life prodded at him, doing its utmost to force a sardonic guffaw - suppressing it had been almost painful - which would inevitably lead to jokes and barbs designed to undermine, to harm.

But Andrew wasn’t some pretentious rich-boy prick.

Well, he may have been at least one of those things.

He held his tongue until the poison faded from it, repurposing his burgeoning guffaw into a hearty chuckle, and a pat on the back. “Look at you. Look… look at you! This is what people dream of feeling, what big-thinking high school brats crave until some tenured asshole shits on them; an idea with real purpose right? Love at first ideation. Like: boom, snap, Eureka. I get it man, I get it.

… I see it.”

What he saw, perhaps, weren’t the same webbed diagrams that pervaded Andrew’s mind. But he perceived the glowing outline of what Andrew thought he saw. It burned red and orange.

“But you’re sure as shit not gonna get approval to run whatever experiments you have in mind; you said “life-threatening”. What’s the plan: creating the circumstances by rounding up a gaggle of Craigslist degenerates and risk either killing ‘em or making ‘em super?”
 
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Andrew seemed to deflate slightly. He could sense his friend's nearly agonizing effort to hold himself back from slapping his knees and bellowing in Andrew's face. In fact, he had half expected it, dreaded it, and still the excitement swept him along uncaringly.

He appreciated the effort, regardless of how fake the facade was or how Matt's tone still held that note of mockery present when he used to entertain people who are less than bright, like an adult smiling and nodding along to a child's antics.

"No, no! That's crazy! That's insane."

Spark. The seed of madness shifted and broke the soil, the first hint of root forced itself into the world. Hubris and ambition burned like fuel.

"No. There's another way, no need for that."

And from the bottom of the box he drew a thick files of loose papers each one filled from end to end with intelligible scribbles. It slammed heavily onto the already mostly filled table, throwing up a cloud of dust. Andrew undid the knot binding them all together and divided them into 3 smaller piles.

"First, we need to get through this. First files -- these ones -- is ALL of my dad's notes on the Perditia gland while he was researching it. He ended up using only a third of those, decided the rest was irrelevant to his field, but they might still have something we can use. And here -- this thin file -- this is the key words and cyphers to my dad's draft, he usually used very obscure and frankly nonsensical ways of writing notes that only he could understand. Took me about 6 years to make this cypher. Oh and, these things here, I also printed out all of the reference papers he used. So..."

Looking around the now messy, dusty and suddenly very claustrophobic dorm room, Andrew nodded to himself.

"Right. Let's get to it then. We've got the entire summer to figure this out."
 
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“Straight out of the Library of Alexandria,” Matthew whistled, eyes gleaming at the sight of the dusty particulate that rose with the dramatic unveiling, “Or… National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Whichever you prefer.”

He took a seat upon his maroon-and-cream bed sheets, eyes narrowed, some quizzical scrutiny intermingling with his amusement. Somewhere along the way, Andrew had interpreted “tell me about it” as voluntary enlistment to his cause. Press-ganged by all of Andrew’s rabid enthusiasm, Matthew opted for the path of least resistance, allowing his peer’s energies to sweep him away.

“Hell. I was deciding against smoking weed all summer anyways; you get started, then, I’m making a playlist before I go in.”
 
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CHAPTER II - DESCEND

Summer enveloped Chicago like a boiling cauldron, bubbling up stifling windless veils of transparent smog for an atmosphere. The sun hung above the city like a guillotine blade, dreadful and smothering, stretching long, muted shadows late into the evening. School broke and the dorms emptied quickly, people couldn't wait to escape the heat and claustrophobic rooms of the place. Silent hallways and lobbies which mere weeks before were near bursting with bodies now even in the middle of the blinding, white hot day seemed eerie, unnatural. The hum of ACs in deserted expanses could set one's teeth on edge with its constant lulling rhythm.

Andrew's footsteps echoed loudly in the teal-painted corridor, his form continually plunging into contrasting shadow and sunlight, the breaks between windows high above one side of the wall colouring the opposite wall and ground in stretches of gold and gray like tinted barcodes. His sleep-deprived, sunken eyes locked onto the phone screen in one hand, the other absentmindedly clutching a coffee tray.

Another condescending e-mail from Jones insulting him and demanding him to "get serious". A obligatory dry, uninteresting e-mail from his dad asking after his progress without actually caring about the answer. 27 different newsletter from sites he subscribed to in hope of maybe finding a lead, which of course none of them had any. Messages from friends he hadn't talked to since the ordeal, missed calls and mocking statuses online. He scrolled through it all with an exhausted intensity that neither the scorching sunlight streaming in nor the stuffy weight of summer could lessen.

Andrew opened their door into slightly less suffocating air and a whole lot messier sight. Stacks of documents strewn around on the floor without order or care, curtains half-drawn plunging one side of the room in shadow. Matt was on his bed flipping through script-filled papers without much attention, bored out of his mind. Probably was regretting ever being drawn into this in the first place. The steady hum of the AC in the corner made his jaw ache.

Setting Matt's coffee on his desk and throwing himself in the chair in front of his own, Andrew picked up the folder he reading previously and settled in to continue. But his eyes had gone through only a dozen line before he stopped, raised his head and surveyed the room again.

He set the folder back down and rose. Gathering the discarded mess into piles, he categorized them, ordered and packed them into neat piles, putting each into marked boxes, nice and tidy. Then he sat back down with a sigh, preparing to get back to work. This time he managed only a single passage before getting up once more. He swept the floor and cleaned the bathroom, ironed all of the clothes he hadn't had time to do, opened every mail and organized their content. He finished every chore he could think of and more. But when he checked his watch, he was shocked to find that merely an hour had passed.

When Andrew's back rested against his chair for the third time, he knew he wasn't going to continue with the research. He had been avoiding it. It had been a month, half of the summer practically gone, and he had gotten nothing, not a single shred of usable information. Nothing to support his theory, or provide a lead that could be pursued. It was killing him.

Resolutely throwing down the folder for the final time, Andrew opened his laptop and found an article he had saved the week before. It was intriguing, tempting even, but he told himself there were lines reasonable, lawful people could not cross. He told himself it was only an article of interest, for reference only, nothing more. His eyes darted back and forth between the words on the screen and the stacks of unchecked document. There may still be something useful hidden in there somewhere, among all of his dad's nonsensical, impossibly aimless research.

"Hey Matt? Come look at this."

His browser was opened to a short local Belvidere news article regarding the death of one Brian Mondays, 67 who passed away of natural causes 5 days previously. And among the uninteresting text hidden between 2 passages, it was briefly mentioned that Mr. Mondays had survived a fatal car accident 4 months prior.
 
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Matthew’s words were preceded by the quaint, almost impotent sound of fallen papers flapping against the bed, a pause that seemed almost reluctant, and slothy steps, each one slower than the next.

“Mondays. Brian Mondays.” Matthew’s voice reverberated with a yawn barely restrained, the first word spoken in quite some hours reminding him of just how exhausted the whole endeavor had made him, “Named after the worst day in the week; must have been a depressed old fucker.”

He craned his neck to peer at the article Andrew had pulled up -- not at all out of genuine interest, a little bit in order to humor their friendship, and mostly to alleviate the tedium of the day -- and rubbed his eyes of their crusts, casting away the lethargy of days without purchase. On the whole, more words weren’t exactly the tonic he would have chosen, but he imagined Andrew wouldn’t be particularly amenable to the prospect of a sweltering afternoon strip-club session. Matthew wouldn’t have been either, but the idea of bringing it up had amused him.

Truthfully, he expected to cast these words aside like all the pretty ideas Pandora’s box had held, less-than-compelling apocrypha to spend a half-hour or so digesting before leaving behind. Those weren’t the only words that struggled to maintain anything more than a tenuous grip upon Matthew’s attentions nowadays. He had scoffed as his parents, distant even in their airy prose, commended him on his ‘work ethic’, stranded away on campus. Jones had tried his hand as well, until he eventually gave up on his chidings and warnings -- that particular adverb not altogether capturing the readiness with which he did so.

He was a man touched with a hint of miracle, and who made the most of his blessings; after having emerged from a catastrophic car instinct…

“Sixty-seven’s not a great age to have your origin story at.” Matthew’s joke didn’t carry the same mirth his words so often did before this whole research-fiasco, perhaps the most telling indicator that he was tired. It did, however, carry a certain relief - a chance for movement, if not forward, then at least out-fucking-side. “I don’t have to be all that smart to know what you’re thinking; you want to get a look at the body. Look here.”

His hand reached out, knuckle rather impudently rapping against the screen, indicating the midpoint of a particular sentence.

In the end, he’ll be laid to rest amongst the riveting blues that he had loved so much in his life, his ashes scattered upon Lake Michigan. Farewell, Brian.

Cremation.
 
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"Shit." Andrew hadn't noticed that oh-so vital piece of information, so wrapped up by the then-promising research notes. Was he already too late? He checked the date on the article, then his watch. 6 days since the subject's death. What was the regular waiting period before cremation? He didn't know. Of course he didn't know. It was fascinating how quickly one could be ensnared by the prospect of a single idea, and how much anxiety a single word could conjured within a few breaths. Andrew didn't see a remote tragedy or a missed opportunity, he felt his own life running through his fingers like water.

Grabbing his coat and laptop in a single motion, Andrew bursted out of his chair toward the door. "C'mon, grab your coffee and your things. It's only a few hours away." He tossed Matt his car key. "You're driving. I'll look up the Coroner, see if we could get in touch with him." A second later he was out of the room, furiously typing.
 
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Five minutes after Matthew deftly snagged the car keys from out the air, he had taken to the honorable task of chauffeuring the rich scientist’s son. ‘Chauffeuring’ was perhaps not so apt a term, such was the luxury of the act, of transporting the scion in the gaudy carriage. The sheer opulence of the dark leather, of the near-ebony grain of the interior was astounding - and, in Matthew’s ‘professional’ opinion, gravely underused for the purposes of one-night courtships. All the tools needed for a first-rate practitioner of debauchery, wasted.

And so Matthew had taken to wringing out as much mileage as possible out of driving the luxurious vehicle, though ‘driving’ was an inadequate a term as ‘chauffeuring’ had been. Tearing and gnawing through Chicago traffic was perhaps more fitting, sputtering and stopping impatiently before erratically accelerating, traffic violations and the general mental well-being of pedestrians everywhere be damned.

As far as Matthew was concerned, they needed a thrill ride, and teetering on the edge of high-speed fatality qualified.

He turned to Andrew, grinning as he failed to make a complete stop at the stop-sign, “What’s the word from the good doc? They down for some mad science?”
 
"Got a number." Andrew poked at his screen excitedly, swirling it around to show a profile page of a typical doctor picture in a white coat with his hands folded, smiling. The man looked to be his fifties, balding with the appearance of someone clean-shaven not out of choice but the chronic disability of being unable to grow more than a pervstache. His insincere grin smile certainly fit someone of that condition.

He dialled the phone number on screen with a grin of his own, not taking the time to compose something reasonable to say, much less a convincing speech. If the coroner had picked up, it would have surely gone awry without a shred of doubt. But unfortunately, or fortunately most likely in this case, the phone rang heartily. And kept on ringing. And ringing.

The enthusiasm bled out slowly from Andrew's features, withering like wheat under the sun. The expectant look on Matt's face added a healthy dose of salt, the complete lack of voice mail scattered more bitterness in, and the picture of the doctor smiling up at him with the fakest smile since the English turned Jesus white lit a massive bonfire under his pan of a mood, boiling the whole thing into apocalyptic concoction of absolute. fucking. hatred.

Only Andrew's white-knuckled grip on his phone stopped him from throwing it at the windshield and throw a catastrophic tantrum. Instead he sweated like a pig bathing in bubbling mud and mumbled stupidly to himself. He inhaled deeply until his lungs hurt, then blew out an explosive sigh. He wasn't in the right state of mind, Andrew broodingly reflected. He was in no condition to engage in any type of human contact right then. He seethed silently, blanching at the thought. But enough of his academic brain was left intact that he recognized what needed to be done.

"Let's pull over and switch. I'll drive. You should do the talking." He wiggled the laptop and pointed at another profile underneath the doctor, a middle-aged African American woman doing the exact same fake smile. Christ, the thing was contagious. "I can't believe I'm saying this, butyour smart-ass attitude is probably more productive than my fucked mood right now." Already he was regretting it.
 
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Matthew offered an almost-cartoon pout at Andrew’s suggestion, an expression born out of a sincere disappointment in having to relinquish the wheel, but mutated and elongated into caricature. Nonetheless, he acquiesced, in equal parts because he acknowledged that it would likely increase their respective life expectancies, because talking out of his ass for purely selfish reasons was another hobby of his, and because Andrew looked fit to burst, so best not to provoke him in any way.

He pulled over at an empty stretch of road flanked by Illinois trees, and -- predictably -- still couldn’t resist, offering a quip in sing-song that may as well have been a taunt. “Just don’t road-rage out, okay buddy? Road safety is very important.

Nestled within the passenger seat, he took to scanning for the doctor’s contact details, his eyes immediately drawn to her visage, smiling that stock-photo, pearly-white smile of hers. It bothered him, perhaps disproportionately so -- though not so much as remembering that he himself was adept at smiling such false smiles. He smirked, entirely to himself, before dialling her number.

Three rings, and then a voice on the other line. Disaffected, tired. Didn’t exactly bring to mind that bright-smile of hers.

“Doctor Howell.” Blunt, curt -- already wanting to get it over with.

He lead with flattery, “Doctor Adrian Howell! An honor and a privilege. How’s the bright, sunny day treating ya?”

“It hurts me. I am sweating profusely; it itches my forehead. Who are you, and what can I do for you?” Not the kind of impatience that empty praise could get past.

Down to business then.

“I’m Samuel Mallory, Department of Science student, University of Chicago, inquiring about the remains of one Brian Monday?”

“Brian.. Monday, you say?”

Ah. “... sorry, Mondays. Brian Mondays, you know how it is, the heat and all.”

“Sure I do. You introduced yourself as a student, so I take it you’re not a friend or relative.” Not even a single trace of upward inflection. Statement, not a question. “Let me refrain from wasting your time then, I can’t allow anyone that’s not --.”

“Friend or family to view the body, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that -- what I’m strictly asking for is also not, uh, strictly speaking, legal, just like I’m not, strictly speaking, a science student from the University of Chicago.” She didn’t hang up yet, which wasn’t so much a good sign as it was simply not a ‘game over’, “I am actually a P.I. on retainer from certain elements of the Mondays family to perform certain tasks of due diligence to ensure his death was not a result of foul play. As you may or may not know, Brian Mondays was a man of some amount of wealth, although the matters of his estate were perhaps not adequately clarified and thusly -.”

“He died of natural causes, Mr. Mallory. These suspicions of foul play are, quite simply, ridiculous.”

“That’s great, well, you won’t mind if my associate and I stop by for a visit then, right? We’ll simply need to view the body, and conduct our own preliminary assessment.”

“Absolutely not.” A click. Doctor Adrian Howell had hung up.

Matthew Holler looked to Andrew, a smile still plastered on his face, and for some reason -- one that even he couldn’t quite fathom -- he continued, “That is… tremendously helpful and cooperative of you. Thank you so much. We will be right on our way shortly, hope to see you there!”

He shot Andrew a thumbs-up.
 
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