°°° Sealing the Deal °°° The discussion room was silent as Mr. Dickson made his decision and walked out. No one blinked or moved a muscle, as if they had been put on hold.After almost ten seconds, Carlos and Sarah looked at themselves in bewilderment. His response had baffled them; it wasn’t a response they had expected. “Mr. Dickson, wait a moment!” Sarah called out and ran after him with all her might. “All we are asking for is a scholarship, sir,” she said as she caught up to and halted the man. Back in the discussion room, Carlos was brimming over with anger, confusion, and hatred. If not for Sarah’s presence in the building, he knew that the news headlines for the following morning would be “Domain of Warriors Regional Head Office in Rumbles." Director of Affairs, Mr. Dickson Grant, found it "shredded.” “Mr. Carlos, you need to see this from our perspective." "The risks we will be taking with this,” Theodore started with an empathetic tone, but Carlos stopped him, shaking his
°°° Busted °°° The Green Therapeutic Company In the spacious office of the herculean Gerald Greene, Gerald sat with his client Andrew. They had been talking since before eleven o’clock and had kept discussing for over an hour into their session’s time. Gerald had mainly tried to explain the process of the sealing, but their discussions would seldom trail off to the nature of the Dual Infinity company or to the history of super-powered beings in their custody; they always returned to the topic at hand. "...in other words, the simplest and quickest way for Dad to initiate the sealing process would be to use me?"Andrew asked as they returned to the topic of sealing after another tangent. “Yes. See it as a simple, reversible chemical reaction. The compound or compounds that are formed out of a reaction between two elements in a reversible reaction can be reversed to recover the elements involved in the reaction. "Your personality and powers were products of the reacting events, and rev
°°° Humility °°° • Dual Infinity Headquarters, Vancouver, Canada The office of Dan White was calm as D, the android, worked diligently on the laptop on the desk. When someone knocked on the door, he was working on ideas and designs Dan hadn't finished.It was Dan’s secretary, and just as she walked in, Gerald, Martha, and Dan, with Andrew slung over their shoulders, appeared out of the window of his office. “Mr. Dan?” The secretary looked at him, then back at the android at his desk. Dan looked at her with tension in his eyes, then sighed with relief. “God grief. I forgot to alert D that we were coming. My bad.” "But, boss, we agreed you wouldn't use him again until you perfected his people skills," the secretary grumbled as she closed the door. Dan walked to his desk and laid Andrew on it, sitting beside him. "Grace, you need to calm down, all right." I mean, I don’t see how else I’m supposed to know if his people skills have improved without bringing him out to interact with the
°°° Suspect List °°° Dan and Hela proceeded in silence to the room designed to be the "Sequencing Chambers." The large room was painted white and was almost completely empty. The Genome Chain Sequencer and a transparent tube that could hold a full-grown man are the only occupants. Dan walked over to the tube and punched some keys, and the glass fragmented into the hexagonal shapes associated with bee hives, and in two seconds, they vanished. He stepped forward and placed Andrew in the tube, taking his time to fit him into the humanoid outline the tube had provided, as he had programmed. Once Andrew was within the outline, blue translucent liquids poured into the tube as the hexagonal shapes began to reappear from the bottom of the tube, and transparent bands held him down at his feet, wrists, chest, and forehead, keeping him from falling forward. Dan stepped back, and the tube sealed itself completely, the hexagonal shapes disappearing from the tube’s glass immediately. “Hela, init
°°° First Kill °°° "Oh, sh*t," Gerald struggled to calm himself as D informed him that he was a suspect. “The second would be Hela,” D added. “Why and how am I a target?” Gerald stammered. "Keep calm, bro." If he was sure of your involvement, he’d have told Dan directly. "Keep you calm." "Well, sir, your ability fits into the range of abilities that will permit the sabotage." Other than Dan, you and Hela were the only ones in the sanctuary who could cause such untraceable damage.Scanning through the information Hela had provided concerning your ability and the possible subabilities, I would have immediately marked you as the one responsible, but Hela is a probability-calculating android. She may have calculated the probability that you would be blamed for her actions because you have her probability perception as a subability. “But I can’t find any motive on your part to do that." You were the one that helped Dan discover the problems with his son, so it doesn’t make any sense tha
°°° Deadly Savior Of Mankind °°° Following his command, the pores on the android’s “skin” opened up, releasing the knockout gas stored directly under his “skin” layer. Gerald paced to and fro within the room, darting an annoyed glance at D every now and then, unaware of the gas enveloping the air in the office. He wasn’t scared that D would try to attack him because he was aware of the programs Dan had set up in the android to keep it from directly attacking other lifeforms. Over time, Gerald’s pacing speed dropped, and he began to feel tired and drowsy. Gerald was struggling to stay on his feet and drew a chair, collapsing into it almost immediately. “What… what did you… what did you do to me?” Gerald tried to sound fierce, but all to no avail, as he felt his eyes get heavy with sleep. "D... you... argh... you should stop what you're doing." "As you wish," D grinned and turned off the knockout gas.Rising to his feet with his cruel grin, D walked over to Gerald’s side and massaged
°°° Bigger Fish To Fry °°° "On to the bigger fish to be fried," Dan said with a smile, but Gerald just stared back at him, puzzled.“What? "Why are you staring at me like that?” Dan asked, raising a brow, confused by the look on Gerald’s face. “It’s nothing… it’s nothing… It’s just that I... "I can't get my head around the fact that you're so calm right now," Gerald shook his head slowly. “Calm? I mean, I do this every evening, man. "I always shut him down for the night, so it’s not something new to me,” Dan chuckled softly. “But this time around, it’s not just for the night, is it?” Gerald replied with a low voice. "Dan, I know how much time and effort you put into D, how much work you put in to make him, well, as human as he could be, and all of that was just thrown out the window, man.""If you are alright, then you need psychological help.” “I manipulate perspectives; don’t you think I could make you and the entire earth believe that crazy is the new normal?” Dan laughed and sat
°°° Internal Affairs °°° • Oak Lane, Philadelphia Carlos Wilson’s Residence In the basement of his house, the only place in his house he has been comfortable in since his healing stunt on Kate Sunday evening, Carlos sat in total silence. He looked a bit older than he was, as he had used some of his life force to pull Sean out of the grips of death. He had been using his life force daily, each time he visited Sean. He would slowly undo what damage he could without it being noticeable. He'd been doing this for about a week since returning from the Pittsburgh meeting. He was barely ever at work anymore and had left the repair shop in Malone’s care. Right now, there were just a number of things on his mind: the complete resuscitation of Sean to the point where the medics could continue, and then the issue of a meeting with the Ancient One, a meeting he had requested since the incident but had yet to get a reply. The meeting was one of the reasons why he was always in his basement whe