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 Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:11 pm
There wasn't much of a hesitation after Max began to speak; Adelle pressed the gas immediately, probably forcing the car into an uncomfortable lurch until they were out on the road, or at least what all was left of it. Many parts of town hadnt been repaved so it wasnt uncommon to hit some rough patches. Her eyes scanned to the horizon in the direction they were heading and blinked. "Bleh, I bet the road is absolutely impossible up there huh?" she said off topic.
Even Adelle could imagine the unappealing lake and the area surrounding it. She wondered to herself if Max actually liked that sort of scenery or loathed it along with his job. Certainly she did not think it was the prettiest place nor did she want to hang around it long, but much to her dislike, it would later become her new home. What lie beyond those mountains and in that behemoth building was a surprise nobody would expect.
Adelle could find her way through most of the streets and neighborhoods to at least get in the direction they were going, but every once and a while glanced to Max and check to make sure it was correct to turn left at the old law firm building or a right past the broken fountain of what was once a city hall location many years ago.
"Im really curious, is there... any sort of hint you can give me about what you are going to show me or do you not feel safe to tell me until we get there?" she chuckled, knowing for a fact there was no survelance in her vehicle.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:14 pm
By now, even someone glancing in the car from the streets could tell that Max was uncomfortable with the ride, gripping onto the inner frame of the car, his pale skin losing another tone of color as the ride progressed. Brushing off her comment with a chuckle, he shook his head,
"The paving has been removed up there, nothing but dirt," he assured her. "Just watch out for the odd log." Max could see the laboratory rising up over the buildings ahead, the behemoth structure was impossible to ignore, and the young scientist was getting excited just thinking about the things he could show Adelle in his home.. not to mention showing her the knowledge that lay beneath it. He couldn't help the small grin flicker to his lips when she asked him for a hint, but this was too fun for him to let go yet.
"You'll see when we get there... You wouldn't want to ruin the surprise would you?" It would be a surprise alright; though from the way he was keeping that little... 'experiment' safe, he wasn't sure it would be a pleasant one for the animal lover in Adelle.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:18 pm
Strikingly enough, his driver didnt notice the fear from her peripherals, doing nothing to help it by speeding up. Adelle nodded and made note to slow things down when theyd reach the dirt road. The car continued to approach the industrial location as Adelle rolled her eyes. "No, but Im Im just extremely eager to find out what is so special, I dont think Ive ever seen you this excited in my entire life." she commented, then glanced at his face- (Good God he looks carsick....)
Finally the ride ended though with a rather smooth stop, the woman driving smirking as she unbuckled her seatbelt and nearly lept out of the car. She was ready to see what it was that he had to send her out here to see. Hopefully she would handle its state well and ironically be more on board for getting the thing in a safe enviroment. Then Max would have her right in his grasp.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:19 pm
Max smiled wordlessly, he wouldn't give anything away until they got inside. When the car slowed to a halt, the scientist tore off the seat-belt and leaped out of the car with the same vigor as his hopeful associate (though it wasn't nearly so much to do with his excitement as the fear of another minute in that car for he was certain to throw up soon). He looked up at his new home; he still hadn't gotten used to it quite yet, it's grandeur presence entirely swallowing the two scientists and the car with its shadow alone, the whole building letting off a sort of eerie vibe. It didn't help that it was situated in a sort of darker, secluded part of town in a mountain's constant shadow.
Max's footsteps traced over the same ones he left this morning, walking up to the "castle" entrance and walking up to the keypad, sliding all five of his digits along the fingerprint scanner, the door acknowledging his presence with a sort of ridiculously happy tone, announcing "Lovely to see you back so soon Professor, did you have fun on y--" before Maximilian groaned and forcibly pulled open the unlocked doors, freezing the CPU's voice mid-sentence and striding into the building, into a landing room. Tugging Adelle in alongside him, he closed the doors and kicked at the mat, trying to dislodge the snow off his boots before briskly making his way out of the room and down a hallway, letting Adelle follow at her own pace.
He would definitely need to get this place cleaned up once in a while. As he strode into the (not-so) grand hall, his eyes lingered on the cobwebs in the corners, the broken floorboards poking up and making the man trip up every now and again; he didn't even turn on the lights lest Adelle see any further than what the dim light filtering in through the musty windows would let her.
Creeping into a room off to the side of the hall, Max's fingers touched the scanner once again (he had to be very secure with these rooms, after all) and the door hissed open silently this time, a blue glow reflecting off his face as he motioned for Adelle to enter first.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:20 pm
Adelle scanned the building and the ground around her, glancing to Max for a second about to ask him if her car was fine here but shrugged it off as he started to head to the building. She watched curiously as he unlocked the door, raising a brow at the artificial greeter's voice.
"You havent bothered to try and get rid of that, have you?" she asked, voice trailing out slowly when the inside of the hallway came into veiw. Her neck crooned backwards to absorb everything, despite its dry appearance- it almost felt nostalgic to be in this sort of place much like her old work.
Adelle took her time walking through the hall, starting to grow almost nervous as the details that started to show. It reminded her now of her garage, which probably wasnt in as bad of shape but fairly close. "Christ, Maxy.." she muttered, though forgivingly noted that he probably had not the time or the amount of help to clean the whole place. Once they reached this next room, Adelle finally took off her coat, draping it over her arm. "Oh?-"
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:44 pm
"I live here alone, no point in patching it up, for asides from the odd Military official to check progress, we don't get much visitors," he smiled grimly, stepping down those long flight of stairs and into the next floor, obviously underground, dimly lit from overhead and yet a strange iridescent glow coming from the large tank set up in the middle of the room. Without bothering to explain any further just yet, the scientist stepped past the benches, broken or patched-up lab equipment covering the counter-tops and various jars of pickled amphibians resting there. No doubt Adelle would soon be able to see their similarities soon; Hoping that Adelle missed the rather grisly display of dead and dried frogs pinned to the cork-board wall, Max stopped at the foot of the open tank, lights from underneath it shining up and casting reflections on the ceiling.
He paused for a second, tapping his fingers on the edge of the tank and waiting for Adelle to catch up to him as he started, "Did you know what the Military appointed me to do, Adelle? I have been set the delightful task of rightening the ecosystem's balance in Saltaire and regrettably applying my research to the whole of Eurasia. As you've probably noticed, the insect situation in Saltaire is horrid--there are flies everywhere, people are getting sick from the filth and disease they're spreading, and I've been bestowed with the only knowledge capable of righting the balance, much to my dismay."
Flicking water up from the pool with his fingers, something stirred beneath its depths, a shadow lazily flitting from one side of the water to the other, clearly enjoying the space (which was about half the size of a standard school swimming pool), though the lights made it almost impossible to view. Nevertheless, Maximilian ignored it and continued, "Except I had a better idea.. Why waste my time being the Military's lapdog when I can earn some gold on the side? Don't you agree that sounds like a better idea?" He was trying to slowly approach this idea, not push it on her, but he would have to reveal it sooner or later..
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:25 am
With a shrug Adelle replied, "Well I figured as much heh. You should've tried contacting me throughout the years, I would've visited you," lips curling into a smirk. Her heels clicked the floor as they trekked the stairs, obviously Miss Adelle taking a bit longer to get down them than her cohort. As they passed the amphibious specimens and the various scientific tools around them, the woman couldn't help but shudder. It was eerie to her, seeing all these once living things strewn about in jars and beakers- she couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Max. But now, Adelle's clicking stopped just a few feet from the rather large tank, starting to grow suspicious as to its contents.
Once Max began to speak, that eerie feeling crawled over her yet again, having to snuggle her coat a little bit while she nodded to his words. There was a scrunch in her nose when he began to elaborate on the fly situation, knowing all to well about it hacking off her probable clientele.
Adelle was growing concerned for Max until he started to talk about earning money, quickly gaining that face of expectancy from her. Hell, if it involved money who WOULDN'T be excited? "Max..." she said, trying desperately to be formally introduced to the surprise.
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:01 pm
Maximilian could see the excitement on her face--he was excited himself but he needed to remain poised for the unveiling itself. Wringing his hands together, a sort of maddened glint shone in his eye and he glanced towards the tank, the shadow swiftly floating towards him.
"I'm glad you look so interested, because I have something to show you that might get you very excited, Adelle.." And indeed he did. But first, he had to show her his project. Diving his hand into the pool, the shadow twitched and thrashed for a second before Maximilian pulled the form out by the waist. What emerged from the pool was barely larger than his forearm, a small, webbed, dark-skinned infant, curled up in is grasp and blinking in a rather disorientated manner down at Adelle, tail swaying from side to side.
"Meet experiment double-oh-one.. Created from spliced Anura and Primate "homo sapien" genes, my own in fact, this boy will grow up with eight times the agility, twice the spinal strength and musculature of human beings, and god knows how superior his reflexes are to our own." As Max was speaking, out of the corner of his eye he could see the boy start to struggle in discomfort in his hand, breaths starting to quicken, eyes starting to widen as he panted and gasped as though struggling for air. With a grimace of distaste, the scientist continued,
"How do I know all this?" He chuckled and dropped the creature back into the pool, upon which the boy frantically swam to the other side, away from the scientist, hovering in the corner as Max looked up to Adelle. "Because his brother, triple-oh, survived only long enough for me to find out."
Stepping away from the pool, he approached Adelle, wiping his wet hands on the front of his coat. "The creatures can only live outside the water for a few minutes without perishing from thirst. This is where I thought you may be able to help."
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:11 pm
Just as Max pulled out the baby-sized creature, Adelle shrieked. Clearly she was not expecting a human like amphibian to be the surprise, but just as quickly as she shrieked she began to smile. "Oh my God Max..." she started, then let her old friend finish his explanation. It didn't occur to her at first that the infant was suffocating from the dry air, and upon realizing such covered her mouth worriedly. "Oh dear!"
"Max that.... that's the most..." she started as soon as he dropped the child back in and knelt to where she could look into the majority of the tank, wanting to see the little critter in its home. Hey, she couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for it, the poor thing nearly got killed.
"How long have you been working on this?" she asked raising a brow. "-Wait... my help? How do you mean?" Adelle raised her hand daintily to her chest and looked at Max with almost saddened eyes. It would be rather easy to reel in this brilliant maternal figure with what she had seen so far of the little prince.
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:26 pm
Double-oh-one blinked up silently as he saw the woman leaning over the tank, curled up in its corner under water, his chest heaving as though every drop of water on it's rough skin was like a breath of fresh air.
Maximilian, however, felt little sympathy for the child--it was after all, just another experiment, just as strange and weird as the disfigured babies born near nuclear testing facilities. But those ones.. they didn't have the potential to earn him any money, you see. What most interested him at this point in time, as his fellow researcher dropped to her knee besides him and looked into the tank, was not of how well they were treated, but how much use he could make of them, and, of course, that nice cleft between Adelle's breasts she was unwittingly showing him as he leaned over.
Deciding quickly that there was a time and place for such things, he quickly decided to answer her questions--"Few years, here and there.. took a while to get them to this stage, you see. At first, I was trying to make them more resilient to sub-zero temperatures by mutating these amphibians with some human genomes, but this project I've started--this is much, much better." Through merging anura DNA with that of a human egg, Maximilian had finally succeeded in creating these beings, though what he didn't tell Adelle quite yet was that his first experiment, as well as the fact that one too many trips outside of the tank had caused its death, the creature had initially rejected the human characteristics and so Max quickly learned that the gene that allowed the experiments to stay alive was attached to the y-chromosome, not the x. Triple-Oh--She had died barely before entering adulthood.
Kneeling besides Adelle, he placed a hand on her shoulder, his face masking over with mock sympathy, as though his bleeding heart was looking out for the best interests of these animals and for one single minute in the world, he didn't have any other motivations asides from their well-being. His voice reached out to her,
"Madexo, my dear. It's the key to their survival--if they're going to live like normal... human beings.. outside the confines of this tank for more than a couple of minutes.. Madexo is the only way possible."
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:40 pm
Unaware of her future partner-in-crime's gaze, Adelle continued to watch the little being, hand wanting to tentatively reach out for him. "Aw... you're just a startled little thing aren't you.." the woman whispered.
"Few years? Up here in this place? How do I know you haven't gone looney?" she teased, but let him continue. "I am honestly surprised to find that you've actually continued work on such a subject you detested..." Adelle was not naive, but she wasn't exactly quick to connect that the infant was supposed to mean big bucks to Max.
However, the young scientist's eyes sparked to life, skipping swiftly over the thought of profit and directly to a sense of self righteousness. "M... Madexo? So wait... you mean you want to use my Madexo to keep this-" she paused and looked back to the tank, spotting the little youngling again and proceeding to lighten up at the idea of giving it the potential of a long lasting life. "Of course its the only way possible, and we must use some on that sweetie." she smiled.
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:50 am
"I wouldn't touch him if I were you," Maximilian almost snickered, watching the woman's hand wavering as though she wanted to baby the poor little creature to death. "Bufo marinus. Not my wisest choice in breed, but I wasn't sure he was going to live too long, so..." He knew Adelle would know the common name of that species; as children, they heard the whole world lamenting about the worsening "cane toad" situation. Perhaps it wasn't too good to be releasing such a plague back into the world but the scientist probably would unwittingly end up causing more damage than he bargained for anyways.
"Looney..? I have my moments." With a chuckle, Max stood to his feet, wiping his hands off once more against his coat (he had already spotted a few little warts growing on his palms a few weeks ago from working with double-oh-one and he didn't want to risk any more) for good measure before continuing, "There's plenty of potential in this little one, Adelle--Together, we can create more of them, God knows how useful they could be in their full adult forms, once given the chance to mature.."
Clapping a hand on her shoulder, the other one grasping her hand in a firm handshake, he flashed an excited grin towards her as he pulled her up. "Nice to have you on board, partner."
Once both pairs of eyes had left him, the little Prince drifted to the surface of the water. Large brown eyes watched both the adults almost curiously, heart pounding in his little chest, unaware of their plot, and unbeknownst to him that he was going to be in their center of attention for the next several months of his life.
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