Doctor Bruce Bailey II. Lead genetic technician at Ozcorp R&D

“Trial sixteen,” the tired man spoke into a recorder, rubbing his eyes as the centrifuge whirred. “The arachnoid sequences have proven to be the most efficacious, but no specimen has ever survived long enough for more than one trial. The longest we have kept a vector alive after the alteration is three hours. Human fatality rate, eighty three percent. Higher on any subject older than twenty. So far no transformation. Conjecture: a younger subject is more likely to survive. Possibly the DNA is more mutable at a younger age.

“Trial sixteen marks the first attempt to use a vector other than a spider or other species of arachnid. The relevant gene sequences have been condensed, our new carrier is a lab grown variation of Megavirus chilensis. The board of directors insisted, in spite of my voiced concerns about the comparative difficulty of controlling a microbial agent. Still, even I cannot deny the current data are promising. The first batch is still alive twenty three hours after alteration. They in fact seem to thrive in the mild radioactive environment of the holding canisters. Observation will continue for this batch, we will introduce the vector to the hosts in trial seventeen.”

He shook himself, realizing that as he’d been speaking he had absent-mindedly put his elbow on the lab table. Bad lab practice, but it was five in the morning and nobody was around to see it. He checked the clocks. Trial seventeen would be sequencing for another twelve hours. That meant he’d be in the lab at weird times again tonight, but he was free to go home for now, his steady hand and expertise not needed; the lab techs could handle the rest. He’d slink off and get some rest. Maybe drive his son to school if he got back in time.

Dr. Bailey scanned his way out of the lab, and walked out the front doors of Oz Corp to his less-than modest car.

~~~

Predictably, his son was already up and showered when Dr. Bailey got home. He expected Junior had been off for a run, but the kid never seemed to run out of energy, so it was hard to tell when he’d been exerting himself. Bruce Senior gave his son a one armed hug as he came in, moving around the banana that Bruce Junior was eating.

“Late night again?”

“Seems to be the norm, actually. Feel like I barely see you anymore, Junior.”

“Bruce, please.”

He laughed, “You get to call me dad, you don’t know how weird it is to call someone by my own name.”

“Whatever you say, senior.” his son rolled his eyes, and cast them back to the show he’d been watching on the kitchen television.

“So,” Bruce cast around mentally to try to remember what was going on in his son’s life. “Excited for homecoming? Do you have a date yet..?” he was somewhat hesitant on that part, because he honestly wasn’t sure if Junior was seeing anyone at the moment.

“No,” he answered shortly, and Bruce winced at the realization that he had somehow misstepped. Junior seemed to notice this, because he softened his voice and elaborated, “Training for the game has got me too busy for that kind of thing.”

“Oh, well. That’s too bad.” He trailed off and they were quiet for a moment. Then Dr. Bailey remembered what he had meant to do when he got home. “Say, it’s a nice morning out. How about I take you to school? I’ll let you drive.”

Junior brightened at once, “Sure! Can I put the top down?”

“How else will we make the best of the weather?”

~~~

Bruce Bailey III. High school student. Running back for the Garfield High Gorillas

It was a good morning. Bruce had made a pretty good time on his morning run. His dad had let him drive the beemer to school. Sure, having your dad in the passenger seat wasn’t the height of cool, but the car the seat was attached to kind of helped distract from that. He got above the grade he needed on his chem test to stay on the team(it was his worst subject, but lately he seemed to have a breakthrough). And he got partnered with that wicked smart kid for their next project.

He was just walking out of Chem when it hit. His vision tunneled suddenly, and he wobbled on his feet, clutching at the door frame as the rest of the students pressed around to get by. It was a moment before anyone realized something might be wrong. It was another moment before Bruce responded to their voiced concerns. It felt like he was feeling and hearing everything at a distance. He was getting hot, but at the same time seemed to be fading out. Just as suddenly as the event had started, he blacked out.

Bruce came to in the office of the school nurse, and he was not alone. There was some commotion out in the hall, voices talking urgently, but he couldn’t make out exactly what they said. Bruce was on a folding cot, there was a second one with another occupant. The school seemed to have run out, because the rest of the floor space was taken up with gym mats that still more students were lying on. Everyone looked as pale and clammy as he felt, but Bruce seemed to be the first one to wake.
“Hello?” he reached across and tried to shake his neighbor awake.

Tess Mercer was on her way to the school nurse for her mandatory psychiatric medication. When a big dumb asshole thought it would be funny to trip her at the top of the stairs. She caught herself on the handrail. She had enough this guy's shit. She forced him into fight, which wasn't hard she just had to insult the size of his manhood. "Big strong 'man' like you can't fight little ol' me one on one you have to result to petty trickery. You must be overcompensating for the fact that your manhood is smaller than dung beetle." He lunged at her, but being the moron he was he didn't think about the stairs behind her, she stepped out of the way and let him fall down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs he was writhing and screaming in pain. She went down the stairs. "Looks like you want be attending college on a jockship Dung Beetle." She went to the school nurse's office. "Nurse a kid just fell down the stairs. You might want to call for an ambulance, pretty sure I saw a bone sticking out of his leg."

Home of Magnolia Price

Oberon woke up as usual to the sound of his mother rummaging through the house looking for this or that text book or as it had been lately to where she had laid her latest research notes. Getting up he threw on his school clothes, a white tee shirt and black dress slacks. He knew he wasn't at his old prep school anymore but he couldn't break the habit of wearing the slacks. The shirt was a good change but he couldn't conform to wearing jeans.

"Mom check the bathroom!" He shouted before slipping on his shoes.

"Thank you Ron!" She shouted back. Then he heard the hiss of the pressurised lab door and knew she had gone back to work.

You see Oberon and his mom had moved from their previous home to this new one courtesy of StarkTech. His mom was their led bio-engineer until she got this top secret promotion. It was the first time he didn't know what she was working on. It bothered him cause during the summer he had worked with her as an unpaid intern and knew all she did.

He signed and decided he better get going before he was late. Grabbing a bite to eat and heading out the door he strapped on a helmet to a blue vespa. Starting it up he headed of to school.

Oberon Price. Garfield High.

First period had went by fast and then he had chem class of which he excelled in. Only thing was he knew all the material that they were teaching in this text book already so he used the time to work on other projects and theories. He didn't mind it but the teacher did. Sadly the teacher always caught him when he was in the middle of something good. He would always ask some off the wall question that had nothing to do with the lesson to through Ron off. Ron would always answer correctly and then correct whatever the teacher had on the board to get a rise out of his classmates. He had gotten in trouble for bruising the teacher's ego a few times since the start of the year but he kept doing it. This time the teacher decided that he would pair him with the running back of the football team as a punishment. Thinking that it was an actual punishment.

Oberon was smart yes but he wasn't rude about it to people except the teachers that interrupted his projects. His classmates had alot of room to grow and he would help them in what ways he could. Before he could say anything to his new project partner he was up and heading out the door. Wait no he fell. That's when Ron heard the gasps and frantic speech. He stood to go check what was going on and suddenly his head swam. He felt a chill run through him as if he was back in the StarkTech cryo labs then nothing as he fell to the floor crashing into a desk as he did.

The next thing he heard was the guy who was going to be his lab partner saying hello and then shaking him. His head throbbing and still feeling cold he looked up and saw the lights of the nurse's office. He heard outside of the room hurried foot falls then turned to the guy.

"Yes?" It's ok...I think?" He felt his busted lip and winced. "Are you ok?" He asked the guy before laying his head back down.

Tess had passed some parents in the hall, having a hurried conversation with the school Principle, Dr. McMahon. They stopped talking as she approached, and the principle quietly moved their conversation to a nearby unused classroom.

As she entered, Nurse Liz Hopkins looked up at Tess from where she’d been re-checking on of the other kids’s temperature. “What?! Another fainting?” And she bustled off out the door, forgetting entirely to provide Tess with her required medication.

In her anxious state, it did not even occur to her to quarantine the room and keep Tess out. She still thought it was something they had served at lunch.

——-

Meanwhile, Bruce ran his fingers through his hair. They came back wet with cold sweat. He looked back at Oberon. “I think so. I feel better, some. A little nauseous. Did you... did all of us black out?”

---

It was another boring day in another boring home as Jackson ignored the fourth alarm. He was holed up in his own room in the basement of the Mudge residence that was only a hop and a skip away from school. There was no window to discern a time of day, but by the sound of the footsteps coming down the stairs it was definitely only a few minutes until school started. Sure enough, the door burst open and Greg Mudge, the family patriarch, was standing there in a suit and tie. "Damn it... Jax, hurry up. Throw on some fresh clothes and get to school." As the lawyer went to close the door and head off to work, he paused momentarily in the doorway. "Please don't skip today. I need you to watch Tyler's back." The groan of acknowledgement from the bed was a sufficient agreement, and Greg went upstairs to get off to work.

---

The school seemed just as boring as ever. The last stragglers were rushing towards the building, Jackson's foster brother Tyler included in the mix. Tyler was only 12 but was a Freshman at Garfield High School. He was a prodigy of sorts and an anomaly for an orphan. He was gifted and cheerful, but was also much smaller than most of the other students. An easy target, one that Jackson would go after if he chose to release his anger that way. But today was apparently a good day, as the bullies weren't waiting out front for Tyler. A sigh of relief and obligation passed his lips as he made his way into the building himself.

He went to his first class of the day, Chemistry. He sat in the back of the class, as usual. Chemistry was one of the classes everyone had to take, which would explain why the star of the football team and the resident whiz kid were noticeable standouts from the rest of the crowd. Jackson... he just blended in with the other burnouts. Whispers flooded around him as the other students who didn't care much for the class talked about how "fucked up" they got the night before, and what they were planning to do during lunch. The bell was a saving grace for Jackson as he picked up his messenger bag and tried to make it out of class. Unfortunately, Bruce decided that he was going to collapse onto the ground and block the exit. Something seemed off about him...

And that's when his consciousness broke. Jackson fell to the ground like a bag of bricks, passed out. When he awoke, he was on the floor of the nurse's office on a mat. He felt cold and tingly, but he could make out two voices near him. His fellow classmates, the genius and the jock. There was a sharp pain in Jackson's forehead, and there was clearly a cold sweat dripping from his brow. From the looks of the others, it appeared that it was some kind of flu or virus. Just what Jackson needed. He laid his head back down on the mat and kept his eyes closed. He tried to listen to any nearby conversations, hoping to figure out what was going on.

Lindsay's morning had been a normal one. She'd woken up at six, as usual, cooked a fry-up for herself and the family, as usual, and driven to school, arriving precisely five minutes before the last bell, precisely as usual. She hadn't done anything particularly different with her clothes or hair, nor had she worn any makeup, other than the usual concealer for the scars on her cheek, as well as any bruises she'd picked up. She hadn't eaten anything unusual in the past week. Nor, as usual, had she spoken to anyone unusual at school, (that being anyone other than her friends, Daniel and Emmy, who were twins, and were both currently on holiday).

That she'd spent an hour that morning beating the hell out of some rookie in an alley was irrelevant.

Her first lesson, (English class), had passed without incident. She'd answered a few questions, read an extract from her essay to the class, (full marks, rather unusually), and exchanged a few words with her current work partner. Then, when the bell rang, she'd packed up her things, talked with her teacher for a few minutes on a book she'd been reading, and then walked briskly to her locker. There, she'd retrieved her chemistry notes and textbook, summarily ignored one of the cheerleaders' comments on her apparently 'dumb' accent and 'malformed' face, (Fool, didn't the bitch know the difference between a birthmark and a scar?), and made her way to her second class.

"Yes," she thought, "A thoroughly normal morning." Why, then, was she now hunched over a toilet bowl, trying not to puke her own guts out? Chemistry class hadn't been going for more than ten minutes when her face went pale and she began to feel nauseous. She'd put up her hand and quietly asked to be excused, before bolting for the nearest bathroom. Now, though, it was quickly becoming clear that she wasn't just experiencing a funny turn, and she lamented her poor judgement as she staggered out of the bathroom and collapsed halfway between it and the nurse's office.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lindsay awoke with a start in unfamiliar surroundings. She quickly noted that she was lying on a rather uncomfortable mat on the floor of what seemed to be the nurse's office, and she noted, as she rubbed the sleep from hazy eyes, that her hands were clammy and damp with sweat. She cursed lightly under her breath when she realised that some of the concealer for her bruises had come away with her hand. To one side of her, she noted, two of the more popular boys were conversing tentatively, and on the other, she caught someone move out of the corner of her eye.

This wouldn't do. Taking care not to overwhelm herself, she messed up her now damp hair, and slowly got up, before wandering over to the boys who were talking.

"'Scuse me," she began, quietly, wincing as a pain flared in her head and she nearly fell. "I don't s'pose you two know why we're here, 'falle?"

(('Falle is short for efallai, which means perhaps or by any chance in Welsh))

When Tess saw all the sick bastards she was thoroughly unamused. “Damn that nurse wannabe.” She grabbed a mask doctors wear and covered her nose and mouth. While the sick bastards were distracted with each other she sat at the nurse’s desk and stole the cash from the purse under it. After pocketing it in her bra she put her feet up on the desk to wait for the nurse to come back. “Didn’t your mamma ever teach you that you’re not supposed to go to school sick? Some of us can’t afford luxuries like regularly having clean laundry much less a doctor.” Speaking of clean laundry she sniffed her own clothes. “Whew!” She figured some of her loot would have to go to a laundromat unless she could find a home to squat in. In the meantime she grabbed the aerosolized deodarant from the nurse’s purse and generosly sprayed herself.

"It would appear so and with all of us sweating and being cold as we are i would assume that we are all sick with something that caused it." He turned his head to the girl entering who he had seen at school and then some around town. He held up a finger to the girl on the mat who had asked why they were here, with a Welsh twist.

"Well all except the girl stealing the money from the nurse. It's fine. We won't say anything. I would suggest that you get some antibacterial soap and disinfectant though. Due to how many of us are in here with seemingly the same symptoms from what I can tell you might get sick if you don't try to prevent spread of what ever contagion we might have."

He then turned to the girl. "The why like I said is probably due to whatever we have." He then heard stirring on another mat and looked over.

"Though it is very peculiar that we all passed out at relatively the same time and are waking up close to the same time as well. The odds of that happening are slim to none at best and we seem to be breaking the standard." He then reached over to small rolling cart the nurse used to distribute things from and grabbed tissues. Taking a few he tossed it Bailey.

"How are the rest of you feeling?" He dabbed his forehead and pulled back to examine the sweat. Odd it seemed to carry slightly blue color and was slimy too the touch. No sickness he knew off cause this. A puzzled look crossed his face as he wondered what was going on.

---

Jackson sighed as he had been caught stirring. He could practically feel the eyes on him, and there were so few people awake the teen figured it would be best to come clean. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, staying relatively quiet. He felt clammy and disgusting, a combination he tended to avoid even in the summer. He listened to the tyraid of answers the know-it-all attempted to present. As usual, he stated the obvious and claimed brilliance. A simple existence for a simple man in Jackson's mind.

"Something spreading so fast is weird. A couple of us waking up at around the same time? Ever heard of coincidence? The others'll be up soon and they'll have us all sent home." Jackson rarely let his emotions show so clearly. Probably a combination of sickness and everything else going on. Regardless, his attention turned towards Tess. He had seen her around, one of the other burnout foster kids with a lot of pent-up anger who vented their steam through misdemeanors. She was already combing through the nurse's purse, no surprise there.

"She got any gum in there?"

Scott had been on his way to his morning Economics class when he heard quite the commotion in the Chemistry room. Along with the teacher, (though he felt weird entering the classroom when he wasn't supposed to,) he had helped to quell the rush of students, to prevent the fallen students from getting crowded. After that, though, he was a bit lost. Upon receiving instructions to get the students to the nurse's office, however, Scott's course of action was clear. He very carefully slipped his arms under one of the students, and proceeded to fireman-carry him to the nurse's office- trying to avoid any typically crowded stair cases just in case. Upon reaching said office, he showed the unconscious student to the Ms Hopkins, informing her that there had been a second student in the chemistry room, which he had passed just after it happened.
With the incident apparently settled for now, Scott began to return once again to the Economy classroom- hopefully he didn't get grilled for being late.
"Nope," he stated aloud, as he turned on his heels just outside the door.
With a strange calm patience, Scott re-entered the room. His face was flushed pale as a sheet as he then took to his knees, firmly grabbing the top of a standing garbage can, before promptly heaving the contents of his stomach out into the translucent bag. A bout of strong dizziness sent his head spinning as he continued to heave. His stability in question, he simply stayed there as his head swam.
"Nnooot Okay," he interjected, informing the nurse that he'd be there a while.
This, then, was how Scott stayed for an unclear amount of time, clinging to the edge of consciousness with a rather turbulent sensation between his throat and stomach. This being the case, he hadn't seen how many other students were brought in to the room and laid on cots. Even as his head cleared, he stayed in his kneeling position, too exhausted from his bout of nausea to get up at present- or rather, not wanting to risk another shock of dizziness as he stood, and sending him crashing to the ground. His mind began to bounce back, trying to pinpoint any potential source of his nausea, but at every turn, his entire morning and the night before were completely nominal.

Tess reached into the purse and toss the gum in the general vicinity of the person asking for it. “That’s it I am leaving, fuck the meds I’m supposed to ‘take.’ I ain’t sticking around just to get sick.”

Tess proceeded to her next class, gym. Her oh so favorite class Coach Bitch was always on her case about something or another. In the locker room she changed into the mandatory gym clothes. For being late she was required to do suicides. She never could figure out why they were called that. Half way through her suicides when she began to feel a strange pain in her sides. It felt like two chestburters got lost and were going out her sides. She fell to her knees clutching her sides. Coach Bitch came up and asked what was wrong. Tess knew this moron knew nothing about lady problems so she used that excuse. The coach rolled his eyes and muttered something about women. Tess left for the bathroom. The closest one was designated unisex and single occupancy. She locked the door. She ripped her shirt off just in time to see a second set of arms pop out of her side. She passed out from the shock.

The office of Nurse Elizabeth Hopkins

Bruce was looking around at the others. There were quite a few of them, but what was Oberon implying by mentioning how weird that was?
"Could be something we ate. Like, uh, do any of your folks shop at the organic market at Charleston and Bridgewater?

He didn't pay much attention as Tess pilfered the nurse's stuff and then left. She was a uselessly abrasive person, and he honestly didn't have time for that.

There was a bit of a scare just then when an ambulance siren could be heard approaching, and stopping somewhere on campus. Bruce, for one, thought for a moment that things were more serious than they had expected.

"Is that for us? What kind of plague is this?"

But moments later, a boy with a bloody leg could be seen being wheeled by the open door on a stretcher.

It turned out that Jackson was right on the money. Soon, the very frazzled principle appeared with a few parents, including Dr. Bailey, who was not working during the day at the moment.

"Ah," the principle spoke up first. "Good, you're awake. Some of your parents are here to take you home, and we're arranging rides for the rest of you. How does everyone feel?"

~~~~~~~~
@Burning Kitty
Women's Restroom

Danielle Carroll was the first to find Tess. Nobody answered when she knocked repeatedly on the door, so she began to assume it was some kind of asshole prank, locking the unisex bathroom from the outside so no one could use it. Transphobic motivations, most like.

She looked up and down the hall to make sure the coast was clear, before putting her hand up to the little hole in the door handle, through which the lock could be pressed. A sort of electric whir noise emanated from her open palm, as a small, controlled pulse of force shot into the lock, clicking it open. When she opened the door, her eyes widened in shock. Not just from the person occupying the room, but from the unusual appendages that Danielle got there just in time to see. They seemed to be dissolving as she watched.

Danielle hopped in the cramped bathroom, closed the door behind her, and tried to shake Tess awake.

"Hey, hey. What are you? Mutant? Inhuman? Symbiote host?"

Tess groggily wakes up to find someone had broken into the bathroom. "The door was locked for a reason. Can't get no fucking privacy in this school. Be glad it was me not someone else I won't report because the bastards wouldn't believe me or they might assume I was the one picking the locks." Tess put her shirt back on & shoved past the girl. "Out of my way I got to get to class." She intentionally ignored the ramblings about being a mutant or Inhuman. As for the last she had no clue what the hell that was. She made her way to her next class Spanish. This class was literally the only one she cared for, the teacher didn't ride her like she was the prized horse about to win the Triple Crown. This was the only class she actually got a decent grade in on purpose, the rest she kept a barely passing grade just so she wouldn't have to do it again. She rubbed her sides. Nothing there, must have been a hallucination. Those fucking bastards got me sick. I'll make them pay for that.

The rest of Lindsay's morning passed in a blur. Her dad, as usual, was too busy at work to pick her up, and so Beth, (her soon-to-be Stepmum), had cycled, (and wasn't that a nasty thought), from her part-time job to drive her home. As such, the journey was an awkward one.

"Are you sure you're alright honey?" The blonde asked from the driver's seat.

It wasn't as if she disliked Beth either. She was nice - certainly had more time for her than her dad, most of the time. But she reminded her too much of her mother.

"Dwi'n iawn." Was her sullen reply. 'I'm fine'. It was one of the many phrases the woman had picked up in her time with Lindsay's father. It was also a lie. Her head was pounding, and there was an annoying buzzing sensation in the back of her neck an- "HIT THE BRAKE!"

Time seemed to slow, almost to a crawl, as Lindsay dove out of her seat towards the driver-side door. A sharp pain flared in her wrists, and before she had even begun to fully comprehend what was happening a rope of white something had attached itself to Beth as she almost simultaneously flung the door open and launched herself out of the vehicle.

Seconds later, a Truck came barrelling around the corner on the wrong side of the road and slammed into the car, sending and shrapnel flying. The truck then carried on for a moment, ploughing through the wreckage, slamming into a roadside barrier ant tipping onto its side with a crash.

Another moment, and the wreck of her car burst into flames, and a jagged piece of the hood slashed through her side.
___

She seemingly went into autopilot after that, just barely remembering calling for an ambulance, before picking Beth up and somehow running home. It seemed as though they had both gone into mild shock. As it was, she couldn't remember how the large patch of slowly deteriorating fibre on her side got there, nor did could she recall making two mugs of unbearably sweet tea to calm the two of them down. And as they sat on the sofa in their living room, watching the crash being reported on the news and absentmindedly pondering on whether the insurance would cover this, Lindsay failed to ever notice that the gash in her abdomen had long since stopped bleeding.

---

Jackson's hand shot up and caught the gum with the minimal effort he showed in practically everything he did... but the speed was still somewhat alarming. He unwrapped one of the sticks of cinnamon gum, chewing it slowly as he rolled up the paper and slide it into his pocket. Shortly thereafter, the frame of the principle filled the doorway... and of course Gregory Mudge was behind him. The lawyer was practically fuming, and Jackson wished he was the kid that was being carted away in the ambulance. Would have saved him a long lecture about responsibility.

Jackson stood up and was the first one out the door, walking past the Principle and his foster father. Gregory followed, and the two went out front and got into the car silently. The black Hyundai Sonata hybrid drove away as the two men sat in silence during the two minute drive home. When the car stopped in the driveway, Jackson immediately went for the doorhandle. A strong grip met his arm, however. Greg never touched Jackson, so the change in behavior sent shivers down the teen's spine. He turned his head towards Greg, and the father had a sad look in his eye. "If you were sick you should have said something. I would have called you and Tyler in sick."

The teen sighed. Greg was trying to show affection and blamed himself for Jackson's ailment, just like he always did. Apparently the sight of the other sick kids was enough to convince Greg that the troubled youth wasn't faking a sickness, but instead that something was going around the school. "It's fine, Greg. Didn't know I was sick, a bunch of us showed symptoms in class. I should get some rest." The teen pulled away and opened the door, making his way into the house as Greg sat in the driveway and watched for a minute before peeling out onto the street and driving back to work.

Once inside, Jackson made his way to the fridge and grabbed a few waters, downing two before he even reached the bottom of the stairs and entering his room in the basement. He still felt groggy... yet he somehow felt better than usual. Jackson sat down at the edge of his bed and reached towards his guitar. He quietly strummed away for a few minutes, his fingers nimbly reaching the strings at just the right time. He sped up the song, and the tune became more chaotic and violent. A quick downward strum ended the song... and proved too much for the simple guitar strings. All six strings snapped and shot into the air, a few hitting Jackson's hand and arm and drawing blood. He swore and licked his thumb where one of the strings had struck him. It stung like a bitch... but he was more concerned with the strings. Jackson, despite his better judgement, quickly packed his guitar up in his case and made his way upstairs, determined to get his guitar fixed as soon as possible.

---

Within the hour, Jackson was at Steve's Guitar Emporium, a generous title for a run down music shop. The bell rang as the door collided into it, and the faint smell of marijuana and alcohol swarmed the teen's senses. The place was far from clean or respectable, but they performed cheap service and sold a few "goodies" on the side. Jackson gave a nod to Steve Barkin, the owner of the establishment who stood behind the counter. "I need the strings replaced, quick as you can."

Steve gave a toothy smile as the teen placed the broken guitar on the wood counter. "thirty bucks... ten if you make a pit stop." This was how Steve made business with regulars. The guitar store was a front for Steve's true passion, and teenagers with empty wallets and a love for music could get cheap or free service if they ran errands for the 30-year-old. Jackson gave a nod, and Steve placed a nearly full paper bag on the counter. "You can pick it up tomorrow."

---

Jackson was far from surprised when things went sideways in the back alley off of Seaview Avenue. What he was surprised by was his instincts. Somehow, when the tough bastard with the "HATE" tattoo on his neck threw a punch towards the scrawny teen's face, Jackson was already dodging out of the way and countering. What was even more surprising was that the thugs could be taken down with a single punch each. If Jackson hadn't fought these fuckers before when they tried to mug him a year back, he would have guessed the three just had glass jaws. But something was different this time. But he didn't want to dwell on it for too long. Jackson grabbed each of their wallets, pulling out about $180 in cash amongst the three of them, and left the unconscious drug dealers in the alley with the product they so desperately wanted for free.

He called the cops from the Walgreens across the street, tipping them off to a bad drug deal he saw. An anonymous tip from a payphone, the one way Jackson always dealt with assholes who got on his bad side. Once that situation was taken care of, Jackson grabbed the next bus he could and made his way back home, trying to get back before anyone had realized he had stepped out. But as the teen pressed his head against the cool glass on his ride on public transportation, he tried to piece together what was going on. He had never been that nimble and coordinated ever before in his life, at least not in a fight. For the first time in his entire life, Jackson actually felt powerful and a small sense of urgency. If he was so strong and nimble... maybe he should test out his new limits. After all, he needed to pay back a certain store owner for walking him into an ambush.

Scott felt a buzz in the back of his head. His nausea had passed, but things still felt odd. When the boy with the purple-dyed hair passed him, his vision seemed to break. It looked like some guy in brown, fighting like... someone in a purple hoodie? Either way- it wasn't going well for one of them.
Suddenly, he snapped back to reality, in time to hear he was dismissed from school. He felt alright now, but after violently hurling, he'd take a day off of school. However, with his recent... what was that, hallucination?- he'd like to make sure he wouldn't throw up on the way home.

After school Tess went to a laudromat, she used some of the stolen money to wash her clothes. While she was there she scoped out the contents of the other machines that were left unattended, she stole a few choice items.

After collecting her own clothes she headed back to the abandoned & derelict car that she called home. She found four lowlifes hanging around it. Same losers that chased her off before. The leader of the pack approached her. He mouthed off about how she owed them for something or the other. One of the guys grabbed her from behind holding her in place. When the leader was close enough she kicked him square in the jewels. He crumpled to the ground clutching himself. The goons went to check on their leader. He screamed at them to get her. Tess knew something was off she never could kick that hard before. She normally would have ran but she chose to stay and fight. During the fight she produced two stingers. She marveled at their beauty for a second before she had to get them bloody. The first one to attack her with the stingers out got stabbed in the knee, he crumpled to the ground clutching his knee. The second she barely had time to react, she got a cut on her face. She swung out wildly at the knife wielder and took his hand. He ran away screaming. The third grabbed their boss and started to run. She stepped in front of them. "The One without Balls leaves, you stay. We have business to discuss." The One without Balls stumbled out of there.

Oberon shrugged off the comments and watched the girl leave then he dove into his thoughts for a second he felt something but wasn't sure what it was. The door to the room then opened to the reveal the principal and worried parents. Ofcourse his mother wouldn't have been able to come get him much less heard the phone. As the others filtered out Orberon got up and shook off the dizziness. The principal then pulled him to the side.

"Mr. Price your mother was not able to be reached and it seems you have no other contacts. I have arranged for the nurse to take you home as soon as the other kids have been taken care of." Oberon nodded and moved over to the desk sitting in the same chair the girl had. He noticed the purse and as soon as no one was looking he slipped enough money in. The other girl must have needed it with the way he clothes and demor were. Oberon knew she wouldn't accept a hand out so he felt it better this way.

"Come along Ronny." The nurse said in a motherly tone. "I'll get you home. We can put your vespa in my truck." The nurse was nice unlike the one at his old school who blammed everything on the government and tried to make homemade cures for everything.

Later at the Price Home

He waved the nurse off after parking the vespa on the street. She drove off and Oberon went inside. Going around and into the kitchen to get something to eat and saw the door to the lab was still sealed. The red light still flashing indicating that chemicals and hazardous materials where in use. Oberon sighed and took an apple up to his room. Once he got there he took off his clothes and jumped into his shower. More of what ever had been on his skin was appearing all over his body and it was cold. Some of it seemed like it was forming ice crystals. He scrapped some off and put it in a test tube to examine later. Oberon turned the water on scalding hot and jumped in. The instant he did he felt his body go into shock. Yelling out he crawl out of the shower and lay on the floor. He looked and he had burns down his chest. Welts were forming all along his body and then he felt an icy surge down his spine. The feeling spread across his ribs then down his torso. In his panic he then realized he couldn't move. He looked down and say his skin turning pale. His veins were a brighter blue and the feeling was traveling up to his head. Then he didn't move and his heart beat slowed to nothing, he was frozen.

Morning at the Price house.

Oberon woke with a gasp in his bed. Wait how he was in the shower and wait was it morning? His door opened and his mom walked in. Tears streaked down her face. "I'm sorry Ron. I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were sick and to come in and find you...you..." she burst into tears and sobbed for a second. He realized she had not seen her cry like this sense dad had died over ten years ago. His mother wasn't an emotional woman but she had her moments that everything in her came out at once. This was one of those times. She cleared her throat and calmed herself "...were on the floor and you were...frozen."

The words hit him like a block of ice. He sat up as she came to sit on the bed. "Mom I'm fine now or atleast I feel better than I ever have been." She shook her head and handed him the papers.

Oberon read through the results page to all the tests she had just handed him. "So this sickness has altered my DNA? The genes found that have mixed with my own helix are that of an arctic species of spider!?" Oberon's eyes bugged out. That means that..."

"That your body chemistry is now altered in ways we don't understand. I also found the substance you put in the test tube. It's like a combination of glycol and liquid nitrogen. It allowed your body to freeze but stay alive. It seems like that it was the catalyst to you altered DNA." She let out a sigh and smiled at her boy. He was ok from what she could tell. She now had to be a scientist.

Oberon ran his fingers through his hair and sighed as well. "I wonder if the others are ok." His mom turned white as her son looked at her and his eyes glowed a pale icy blue. He blinked and it went away. He didn't even know it had happened but at that moment he was reaching out without even knowing it trying to find out if the other that had been through something similar.

---

Jackson stood outside of the establishment. He wasn't clad in his typical apparel at three in the morning. He was, however, still wearing all black clothing. Sweatpants, a hoodie, and a black ski mask with eye holes cut out... he looked like a proper criminal. The teenager approached Steve's shop, noticing the lack of cameras outside and the lack of light emanating from the building. This was going to be easier than he thought. The teen tried on the front door, and of course it was locked. This wouldn't stop him. Jackson pulled out his cheap set of lockpicks and got to work, occasionally looking around to make sure no one was around. Within a few minutes, the door gave a distinct click. Jackson wasn't exactly one to break into places, but he had watched a few YouTube tutorials in case he ever needed to do something like this. Turns out it came in handy.

Jackson pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket as he entered the dark store. The faint smells that distinguished this place from most still lingered even after hours, apparently. The teenager made his way past the store shelves and made his way to the cash register. With a few button presses for a fake transaction, the register slid open. Turns out Steve didn't empty the register last night, so Jackson quickly bagged the money. It wasn't bank heist level, but a few hundred dollars was a fortune for a kid like him.

As he was finishing bagging the cash, a chill ran down his spine. Something was wrong... and Jackson's instincts kicked in, quite literally. A quick swipe of his leg knocked the shotgun out of Steve's hands, and a punch to the chest was enough to practically throw him a few feet into the wall. Steve was unconscious, and Jackson took a quick look around. He felt like an idiot when he noticed a small security device attached behind the front door... probably just to notify Steve if anyone entered. With Steve unconscious, Jackson felt no remorse as he went into the back of the shop.

Jackson never realized what had been happening behind the scenes. There was a small little workshop set up to work on guitars in one corner of the open "storage" space, but several tables filled with instruments and bags of various substances were what caught the teen's attention. It wasn't just weed... but Cocaine was apparently another one of Steve's illicit products. Of course, also in the back was a mattress with dirty sheets in the corner, along with a case of shotgun shells. Jackson had never realized the drug dealer lived in his own shop. Jackson approached the bed and lifted the matress, smiling as he noticed what lied underneath. A few hundred more dollars... enough to make the thief drool. He quickly went to work bagging the cash before noticing the security console nearby, dimly lit with a small alert on screen. It had detected someone entering the building, and was asking for confirmation to alert the authorities. Clearly Steve would never do such a thing, especially when the back of his shop was a drug-bust gold mine.

Of course Jackson had pressed "Yes" on the device before running out of the store and into the night to get back home, removing the ski mask when he was a few blocks away and tossing it into a nearby garbage can. By the time he got home, it was about 5 am. He snuck in through a basement window before sneaking into his bedroom, closing and locking the door. He removed his clothes and stuffed them deep into the pile of dirty laundry in the corner. He then reclined into his bed. He figured he'd be able to sleep in if he pretended to be sick. Greg was certainly still feeling guilty... and Jackson felt bad for exploiting him like that. But old habits die hard.

The following day she woke up early, she put on the clothes she stole from the laundromat. She stopped by a bakery just as they were throwing out the old stuff. She grabbed as much as she could carry plus stuffed some into a bag that was in her backpack and ate on the way to school. She bit into a loaf of bread she never had before. She really liked it, she made note to find out what kind it was. On the way to school she passed by a crime scene. She recognized the apartment building as the one where Old Lady Cole lived. She always had work for Tess to do to earn a few bucks. She moved closer to see if she could find out who died. A patrolman stopped her. She attempted to get information but he wasn't forthcoming at all.

She arrived at school early. The first time since her parents death. She wanted to find the kids from the nurse's office yesterday. One of them went somewhere they shouldn't have and came out infected with probably a billion dollar retrovirus or something to turn soldiers into super soldiers. Whoever was responsible for this would definitely want to keep this quiet. She didn't recognize any of the kids from her classes but she didn't know even half of the kids in any of her classes. The first one she saw was on the football team, she didn't what remember positioned he played something back. She approached him like a predator stalking prey. "Yo football dork!" She got right on top of him. She spoke low and with malice. "What kind of freak did you turn me into?"