Timeline 1962 Issue 1

Science Gone Awry!

Will Walden trailed behind the rest of his class as they entered the xenobiology exhibit. Unlike Biff and Hogan, the pair of football hooligans directly ahead of him, Will actually had an interest in the subject. Despite the alien scientist Talisman’s disappearance in the late 1940’s, the science of alien anatomy had become quite the popular subject in recent years. Will knew scientists were mostly interested in the human metagene and its relationship with the alien metavirus that activated it. Will hoped to learn a little more about the subject in today’s mysterious demonstration.

He filed in behind the rest of the class. He made to sure to steer clear of Hogan and Biff, instead finding a place behind Sue Simmons and the rest of the cheerleaders. The cheerleaders weren’t his biggest fans, but Will knew they wouldn’t cause him outright physical harm like the two jocks. Will tried his best to ignore the girls, instead focusing on the three scientists running one last diagnostic on the Maxivac computer system that filled the next room.

The scientists were all rather nondescript sorts, much like Will himself. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a large pair of glasses; Will wondered if all scientists dressed in such a manner. It certainly seemed that way in all the old adventure comics Will read.

Once scientist came forward to stand before the group of high school sophomores. Mrs. Hilton and Mr. Schwartz hushed the group of students. The scientist closest to them cleared his throat.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I’m Doctor Lynn Levin, and my colleagues are Dr. Tanner and Dr. Jacobi.” Both men stopped their last minute diagnostics to wave at the mention of their names.

“All of you are quite lucky to be here today, as you are about to witness a breakthrough in xenobiological research. Dr. Tanner, if you please.”

Tanner moved from the control panel and walked back in to the Maxivac himself. Dr. Levin continued. “If our research proves correct, we will, for the first time ever, be able to actually deactivate the metagene.”

While most of the students seemed clueless about what Levin spoke, Will couldn’t believe his ears. Not even Talisman had found a way to reverse the ravages the genebombs and metavirus had wreaked on so many. If Tanner, Levin, and Jacobi could stop it, it would be a breakthrough for tens of thousands of ailing degens around the world.

Tanner returned from inside Maxivac. He pulled a large, covered cart from within the computer. Several cables trailed from behind it, leading back in to the massive computer. Tanner pulled the tarp covering away to reveal a large glass chamber and the grotesque creature within.

The degen, oozing a viscous slime, moved to cover its form from the vision of the normals. Will couldn’t really blame it. If he looked that way, he’d hide his face too.

Doctor Levin walked to the side of the chamber. “As you can see by our unfortunate guest here, we have many degens interested in the process.”

Dr. Jacobi picked up a cardboard box balanced precariously atop one of Multivac’s various shelves. He carried the box towards the students, starting with Sue and friends. The cheerleaders recoiled as he approached, until he brought the first pair of goggles from inside the box.

“Dr. Jacobi will now hand out a pair of protective goggles to each of you,” Tanner explained. “The process uses a chemical compound that refracts light, and the results can sometimes be quite blinding. Please wear the goggles at all time. We will proceed with the experiment in just a moment.”

The other students shuffled around, while Will focused on the three scientists as they made their final preparations. Will also watched the poor degen inside the sealed tube. He’d never been so close to one before. He wondered what life in such a monstrous form must feel like.

Multivac began to hum before the student body. Will’s attention remained firmly focused on the experiment. He never noticed as Hogan and biff came up from behind him. Will jumped as Hogan’s hand smacked down on his shoulder.

Hogan leaned over Will’s shoulder, gripping it tight. “Hey, Biff,” he said to his friend. “I think the dweeb’s in love.”

Will tried to pull away, but Hogan’s grip only tightened on his shoulder. The chamber began a slow hum as the experiment began.

Will turned to see the chamber containing the degen was now filled with a strange gas. The gas glowed faintly, but before he could see anymore, Hogan yanked him back around.

Hogan pulled Will up by his shirt so they were face to face. “Don’t you know you should pay attention when your betters are talking?”

“Let me go!” Will pulled himself away as he cried out. Hogan released his grip just as Will pulled back, and Will found himself stumbling back. Will’s foot caught across a power cable and he fell backwards towards the experiment floor.

Doctor Levin rushed forward, but he couldn’t reach Will before he crashed in to the degen’s holding tank. The gas within the tank blazed white as he struck the tank. Will saw the glass spider web before the white light shot filled the room.

Will screamed out through the light. Every inch of his skin was on fire. He dropped to the ground in front of the tank. As the light faded, so did Will’s consciousness.

*****

Will blinked several times, adjusting to the bright light above him. He wondered for a moment if he was dead. As his eyes refocused, he realized he stared right in to a large lamp above him. He looked around to find himself lying in a hospital room, alone.

“Honey, you’re awake!” Will’s mother rushed in to the room from just outside the door. “We were so worried, son.”

“I feel fine, Mom.”

“The doctors said you would be, but you’ve been unconscious since yesterday morning, dear. Those horrible scientists should never have let you in that room.”

“I really am fine, Mom. Is everyone else all right?”

“One of the people conducting the experiment, Doctor Levin I think they said his name was. He apparently was burned by the gas, honey. But all your classmates were all right. I still can’t believe your teachers would take you to such a thing.”

“It was nothing, Mom. If I hadn’t tripped everything would have been just fine.”

“But that creature,” his mom said. “No one should have to see such a vile thing.”

“They were trying to help him, Mom.”

“Well, they didn’t. They killed that poor filthy creature.”

*****

Deep in the confines of the Federation Museum of Science, he awoke. Pulling his viscous form back in to a semi-humanoid shape, the degen rose from the slab on which it lie. Slowly but surely, he began to remember. They were supposed to make him human, he thought. Why wasn’t he human?

The creature pulled himself up right and roared. Razor-sharp fangs bared beneath his oozing skin as he cried out in fury. They would all pay for their transgressions. He would see to that.

*****

White light surrounded Will on all sides. He felt weightless, as if he could just drift away….

He awoke from the dream, in his own bed. It had only been a few hours since he’d arrived home from the hospital, but he knew he needed to put the events of the past two days behind him as quickly as possible. That would be hard around his mother who seemed to want to make sure he was all right every twelve seconds. He loved her, and knew she did it because she cared, but he needed to be away from the constant doting as soon as possible. So at the first light, he headed down to the city dump.

He actually liked the dump and the adjoining junkyard. There he was free of the bullying and harassment of his school life. Not to mention the presence of Chuck.

Chuck had been Will’s best friend in grade school, but had dropped out midway through eighth grade. His father had taken ill, and his mother needed him to run the junkyard in the meantime. The sickness turned out to be cancer, though, and his father died only a few months later. Chuck, only fourteen at the time, found himself running the junkyard single handedly, and he’d continued to do so for the last two years.

Chuck smiled a broad grin as Will climbed over the main gate. Will often felt bad for Chuck, thinking back to all his friend’s dreams of college. He knew Chuck dreamed of being a pilot one day, but that dream had died with his father. Chuck didn’t seem to mind at all, though, and Will tried his best not to bring it up. No need to brood on what could have been, he figured.

Will dropped down to the ground, and Chuck ran to meet him. “You’ve got to see what I found,” Chuck said. “It’s amazing!”

Will just smiled as he followed his friend on a winding path through the junkyard. He would have been lost long ago if it wasn’t for Chuck’s lead. His friend knew his yard like the back of his hand.

Chuck brought Will to a rather large object covered in a browning tarp. It reminded Will of the tarp covering the degen and its fate. Was it his fault? He tried his best to put his guilt to one side. Best to focus on his friend’s discovery.

Chuck pulled the tarp away. Will found himself staring at a large gray icebox toppled to one side and embedded inside a giant metal disc. He’d never seen anything so strange, or so ugly. “What is it exactly?”

“Well, it’s one of them flying saucers,” Chuck said. “Y’know, one of them UFOs.”

“It doesn’t look like any flying saucer I’ve ever heard of. It looks like a refrigerator.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen it from the inside.” Chuck climbed on to the edge of the disc and pulled the top open. It even opens like an icebox, Will thought.

“Come on,” Chuck said. “Get in.”

Will climbed up the side of the disc, than stepped in to the open hatch. Inside was a sort of contoured chair, just big enough for him to fit in. As soon as he sat down in it, Chuck slammed the door shut over him.

As the door latched shut, the chamber lit up around him. The walls seemed to become clear, and will could see everything happening in the junkyard around the disc.

“Wow,” he said. “Chuck, this is crazy.”

Chuck’s hands shot to his ears. “Don’t talk. It magnifies your voice somehow. You’re going to blow my eardrums out.”

Will began to say something in response, before he completely took in Chuck’s comment. Instead he lifted the hatch and watched as the wall’s became solid again.

“That was really amazing.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, man. Now I just wish I could move the thing. No matter what I do, I can’t find away to budge it whatsoever.”

“Maybe if I help we could shove it out,” Will replied. He knew he wasn’t really muscular, and he definitely wasn’t built like Chuck, but he could at least put his girth behind it. And he had plenty of that, he knew.

“I doubt it will help, but you’re welcome to try.” Chuck moved to the other side of the disc. “On three,” he said. “One, two—”

Focused on the job at hand, Will yanked upwards. The disc flew up in his grip with the greatest of ease. He held the ship over his head.

“Whoa,” Chuck said.

It was like the saucer doesn’t way a thing, Will realized. He just needed to focus his attention on it and it would stay aloft.

“How are you—”

“Hold on a second,” Will said, cutting Chuck off. He pulled one hand away, keeping the massive saucer balanced on one hand. He pulled his other hand away.

It continued to hover there before them.