Project Anti-Bordom: Wakefield
Piz wandered into Professor Suresh's office feeling really awkward having to do everything left handed. He hoped that he would be the first one there so he could have a moment to gather his thoughts, figure out the perfect thing to say to Ruby without looking like a bigger retard than he already felt.
He paced and, being adorably nosey, he poked around at Professor Suresh's work, and it absolutly boggled his mind. There were things about transmutations and possible genetic deformaties that didn't present topically but lay dormant until willed upon... Piz shook his head and closed the file. If this was what he had volunteered for, he was officially freaked out.
The door opened behind him and Piz spun around, looking like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Ruby gave him a look and he felt instantly embarassed, "Umm...hi!"
"And you are...?" Ruby looked at the new guy, perfectly plucked eyebrow raised.
"I'm Piz. I sit behind you. I lent you a pencil a couple days ago because you lost yours."
"It's creepy that you remember that."
Piz rubbed the back of his neck, "I'm sorry. I'm socially awkward and tend to ramble when I'm nervous and..."
"What do you have to be nervous about? It's just a stupid volunteer experiment. If anything you should be pissed that we're wasting a day of our weekend," She sat down behind Professor Suresh's desk, propping her feet on his desk.
"You know you probably shouldn't-"
"What did you do to piss him off enough to get this lame gig anyway?"
"Umm. Well.. I umm.." Piz didn't want to seem like a keener, or even worse, that he was stalking her and waiting for a moment to ask her out, "I "borrowed" his classroom and used it to beat up a guy who owed me money. Got caught, decided to force me to be his lame lab rat."
"Oooh, A badass," Ruby leaned forward, hands propping up her head as she really looked at Piz. He wasn't unattractive, kinda cute in a dorky way really. She would have pegged him as a boring soul in need of corruption if he hadn't been caught fighting. That is if she actually believed his story.
"That's what they call me," Piz tried not to puff out his chest. He was on the verge of asking her to coffee after this volunteer thing when the door opened again.
"Ahh good you're already here. This shouldn't take more than five minutes. I just need the standard DNA testers, cheek swab, blood samples, hair with a follicle."
"Wait are you legally allowed to take our blood?" Ruby crossed her arms. There was something not quite right about taking blood from students. In her mind, it raised a lot of elthical issues.
"Well seeing as he voluneteered," Piz winced, "And you're here to pay for a punishment, I'm going to say yes, yes I am. If I look hard enough for a loophole I'd find it," Professor Suresh put his bag down and took out two syringes, "Who'd like to go first?"
Ruby stuck her arm out onto the desk, "Stick me doc."
"Alright. Piz if you wouldn't mind doing the swab and the hair sample that would be great."
Piz nodded and did as he was told. while he stuck the swab into the plastic bag and attempted to pull out a complete hair follicle, he couldn't help but watch Ruby get her blood taken. It made him physically ill to watch the plasma swirl into the glass casing of the syringe. He didn't like needles and liked blood even less. He tried not to faint.
"Alright." Professor Suresh put a label on the vial of Ruby's blood and beckoned Piz to sit down.
Piz rolled up the sleeve to his left arm awkwardly, still getting used to the wrist cast, and looked resolutely away. Unfortunately he looked right at Ruby who seemed to be taunting him with her eyes as she stuck the swab into her mouth. This was going to suck.
"Piz you need to slow down your breathing or else you'll hyper ventilate."
He took a deep breathe and let it out slowly.
"But you have to remember to keep breathing."
There was just no pleasing this man.
The needle pierced his skin and instantly he felt like he was going to simultaniously pass out and vomit. This was a very very bad idea. he tried to not sway in his seat after Professor Suresh started vialing his blood.
"Are you okay? I have some juiceboxes if you'd like one."
"Pfft naw... I'm cool."
Professor Suresh went about making sure the other pieces of DNA sampling were bagged and tagged correctly while Piz held his arm and waited for the room to stop spinning.
Ruby watched the paling Piz kid and tried not to openly laugh at him. He looked like one more bruise to his ego would send him plummeting off the Wakefield bridge, which wasn't really that high so he'd probably only paralyze himself and then fall into a deeper depression when he realized he'd have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Men were such odd things. She turned to the Professor, "So what theory are you trying to prove here exactly?"
"I've taken DNA samples from a few people who have shown some...'abnormalities' in their code. So I needed you two to provide the normal DNA to compate it to."
"Oh..."Ruby pondered that thought for a moment, "What if we prove to have the same abnormalities as your test subjects?" She passed it off as a joke, but in reality she was curious and just a little afraid.
"Then you will be taken to a facility for further testing."
"What kind of abnomalities are you talking about?" Piz remembered the papers he had been looking through before. They had to be some kind of serious mutations and oddities.
"You'll just have to read my dissertation to find out," Professor Suresh said brightly, knowing full well no one ever read disserations except for other scholars. "Anyway, you're free to go. Enjoy the rest of your weekend." He gathered up the rest of his things, wanting to get away from faux academics to his laboratory where he could analyze his samples.
Ruby walked out of the classroom with her normal condfident swagger, but in reality she was nervous. She'd never thought that her current condition could alter her DNA strands, and if it did, what would happen to her if Suresh found out...
Someone started talking behind her but she'd decided to ignore him. She needed a plan, she needed a strategy, she-
Knew exactly what she had to do.
Piz dropped his plastered wrist when it hit him that Ruby wasn't going to answer him. Maybe Alex was right for a change. She was a bitch. He turned the other way, not wanting to follow her out of the building.
"Piz?"
He stopped, heart suddenly in his throat. If he didn't know any better he'd say he'd never left highschool. It was really, really pathetic. And not in the cool 'I'm a sad puppy please care for me' way girls liked.
"Yeah?"
Ruby twirled a golden lock around her finger, "I was wondering if you wanted to go get a coffee with me? I kinda need a favour..."
"And you figure I'm more likely to do it if you buy me coffee?"
Ruby shrugged. She had a wavering smile and she looked desperate. Piz knew he'd help her no matter what.
"I guess I shouldn't have chosen such an obvious weakness," He led the way towards the coffee shop, "I shoulda picked something cool like Kryptonite."
Ruby laughed, high and angelic. Piz was in love. Alex was wrong, Ruby was a sweetheart, and apparently a closet geek.
They sat across from each other at the campus Java Bean, sipping coffees in what Piz decided was a comfortable silence.
"So what's this favour that you need?"
Ruby started fidgeting, biting her lower lip and not meeting his eyes. It made him instantly worried. What if she was in some sort of trouble with the law or the mob? He'd do whatever he could to help, but he wasn't sure if it would be enough..
"I don't really want to get you involved in this..."
"No please. You can trust me. And I'll do anything I can to help." He smiled reassuringly as he reached for her hand. It was soft and cold under his touch. His heart ached for her. She was obviously distressed.
"You're so kind," She put her hand over his covering her other hand. This was too easy. She took a deep breath for dramatic effect, "Okay. So I've been taking Prozaac for my clinical depression, but my parents don't know about it. They believe it's all in my head and I'm just a dour child and not medically depressed. Anyway, they'd disown me if they knew, and you just know Professor Suresh's findings would be put on my educational record and I might lose my scholarship and-"
Ruby broke down, pressing her hands to her face as her chest heaved with sobs. She had no idea if any of that crap could really happen, but if Piz was as simple as she thought he was, it wouldn't matter.
"Shit that would suck," He bit his lip, "What can I do?"
"I don't know. we need a plan. Something so he doesn't know the blood sample on Prozaac is mine. If only we could switch the samples..."
"We could!"
Ruby sniffed, "What?"
"We could switch the samples! My roommate has the key to the gym which happens to be in the same building as Suresh's lab. If we somehow keep him from doing the tests today, we can switch them tonight!"
"But how will we stop him from doing the tests? What if he's already done them?"
Piz shook his head, "The prep work alone for blood tests if you're not in a hopsital lab takes at least an hour."
"But-"
"We need to find Wallace."
Wallace was sitting on his bed listening to some Kanye while reading his Sports Illustrated when Piz suddenly burst into the room.
"Where's the fire man?"
"I need your key to the gym and any non-deadly explosive you have."
Wallace was about to answer when Ruby stepped through the door. he did not like nor trust that chick, "I don't know what you're talking about Piznarski. I don't have any explosives of any kind in this room. Never have never will."
"It's okay Wallace. She's cool."
Wallace gave the blonde chick a once over. She looked distressed, but he's seen girls work that angle on a guy before. And if anyone would fall for it. It would be Piz. But he figured the guy needed to get laid, and if he had to help some smoking hot bitch to do it, well Wallace wasn't going to jeapordize that.
He went into his closet and closed the door. Just because she would now know he had illegal substances on campus, did not mean she had to know where he hid them. He came back out with a bag.
"These are my last one's. Use them well."
"Thanks man."
Ruby and Piz dashed out of the room to god knows where. Wallace went back to his reading, not a hundred percent sure if he should have done what he did.
Piz and Ruby started at different ends of the building and started lighting off the bombs in multiple garbage cans. They hoped to set off enough fire alarms as possible, thus making it seem like a suspicious fire which would put both the fire department and the police on the case, closing off the building for a day or two. That would be enough time for them to break in and switch the blood samples.
Finally the sprinkler systems went off, the alarms started ringing and people started dashing out of the building. Piz and Ruby followed suit. melting into the crowd of terrified students who swore they saw smoke and flames as high as the ceiling on every floor. They somehow managed to find each other in the mass of panicky people.
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
"Positive."
"Hey Piz..."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Ruby knotted her fingers through his and kissed him on the cheek. Her plan was going so well, the least she could do is pretend to fall in love with him. Especially considering if Professor Suresh did find some sort of abnormality in her body's DNA, it would all be on him.
Piz couldn't help his chest from swelling. He was doing a good thing, albeit totally illegally. But he'd never felt so alive. He'd always been the safe, boring geeky kid and now he was a true badass, who could possibly get the girl.
"So what do we do now?"
"We wait."
and that's all for now. I've got to get semi ready for work.
Tune in Next time!