Hughes Nucleus

The Violent Science
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-925952-95-7
Verlag: Vivid Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 358 Seiten

Life is pretty uneventful for seventeen-year-old Warren Avery, getting through his final year of school in damp, windy Southway, an isolated forest town. He studies hard, less from passion than duty, and longs for something to happen that might bring some excitement to his dull days. But then a mysterious stranger arrives in town to set up a secret research facility and, recognising Warren's flair for science, asks him to come and work there. He jumps at the chance, but is there more to this research than meets the eye? Troubling things start to happen around town and Warren realises that not only is the world not as black and white as he thought, the choices he is faced with may be a matter of life and death.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hughes, Aaron

Leseproben

I Sociability I let my eyes wander around the room, washing only over the jars of beasts that never came to be. Ms Gwendolyn Harper’s Year Twelve Advanced Biological Science, classroom number nine, right before lunch on a Thursday. The sides and back walls of classroom number nine are lined with shelves full of jars of preserved animals, all notable for one reason or another, and all collected by her on her own travels, as she’ll quickly tell anyone who will listen. The entire front wall from the ceiling to the floor is covered in one ancient blackboard, it’s had the same food webs and evolutionary trees drawn on it every year for every class since long before any of us existed. In front of the board lies Harper’s desk, which she uses as more display space for her morbid collectibles. It also holds a fish tank full of pond scum and tadpoles currently on the cusp of frog-hood. The room always smells old, but not in a bad way. Not stale, but well-travelled. Not like it’s dying, but like it has stories to tell. The cavity in between all the chaos is filled with smaller desks, the habitat for us, the students. Two rows across and four rows deep for a whopping grand total of eight students taking this class, all thirsty for science, tantalised with the promise of a good university followed by a prestigious career. Eight is actually an unusually large number of university hopefuls in one grade for such a small town, or so we’re told, I wouldn’t know what it’s like anywhere else. I couldn’t tell you much about most of these people beyond their names. I sit on the left in the furthest back row, next to a girl named Ava. She’s on her phone under her desk with one hand while trying to scrawl notes with the other. I’ve actually known her for a long time, we’ve always shared classes since we were five, but I’m only just realising that she’s left handed, I can tell by the notes scribbled on the back of her right hand. I guess you do learn something new every day. Her long blonde hair trickling and piling onto the desk as she looks down, covering her notebook. I don’t have people to text, but I sit here in the back for the same reason she probably does, to get away with not paying attention. I direct my gaze past her and out the open window to my right, a portal hidden behind the familiar shelves and bordered with chipped paint and spider webs. Beyond the jars and behind the glass, the grey clouds linger above as far as I can see. A floorboard under me creaks, causing me to look up. I see Elliot ahead of me, with a foot on his desk and a pen in his mouth, not a care in the world. His dark hair styled meticulously, the same way it has been ever since he moved to this town. His immaculate jacket worth more than all my clothes combined. Proud and wild at heart, full of an explosive loathing to things that don’t go his way. For now, the beast swings back on his chair peacefully. Elliot Young and I are the only two students in this room who are unconcerned with the all-important, future-deciding exam tomorrow morning. Both confident in our own abilities, both unaffected by what anyone else thinks, but that’s where our similarities end. I work hard, I study every spare minute I find in the day, I’ve never seen him toil for anything in his life. A challenge or a struggle would feel so foreign to such a brat. But I don’t spend all that time studying because I want to compete with him, to be honest I don’t know why I do it, it’s just what the teachers say to do. I tune in to Ms Harper’s voice, just to make sure I haven’t missed anything actually important. She’s supposed to be going over the exam structure, but she’s been spinning this tangential story about how she got bitten by this snake once. Gwendolyn Harper, an ecologist by trade. Barely thirty, and already been to more countries than most people can even name. In class, she chooses to wear a lab coat all the time, with the sleeves rolled up and her ash brown hair tied back, as if she would start a dangerous experiment at any time. She’s a fun and caring teacher, with a way of encouraging her students without even trying. Which makes me feel bad for zoning out and daydreaming so often, but I make up for the lost time by always reading ahead in the syllabus later. It’s an unusual system I know, but it works for me, and it affords me time in the days to let my mind wander. Hearing Harper’s tale about almost dying makes me look to my left at the coiled snake in its jar. It looks peaceful, neatly twisted around itself, suspended in its safe vessel. Two metres long according to its label, its cream underbelly transitions into its jet black dorsal scales, only the most perceptive could notice, that it’s eyes are actually open. I stare into them. ‘What would you say, Warren?’ Shit. ‘Daydreaming again?’ tuts Ms Harper, one hand on a hip, the other on her counter beside the tadpole tank. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening’ I reply, my voice breaks. Everybody shares a snicker, no one louder than Elliot. ‘I can see that’ Harper quips, she turns her attention from me to the whole class, ‘You guys, I know this our last class of the semester but I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that the exam is tomorrow, so let’s use the time we have efficiently yeah?’ ‘We’re trying but you keep distracting us by talking about getting bitten by snakes’ Elliot says, as he slips his hands into his jacket pockets. The class, save for me, erupts with laughter. I’m not one to suck up to the teacher, but I feel bad for Harper, she’s trying her eccentric best, but even she cracks a smile. ‘Oh, you’re just so funny Mr Young!’ she claps sarcastically, ‘And so clever, for mocking the person who is in control of your grades on the last day of the semester’ Everyone laughs even harder and I join in this time, I see Elliot’s ears become red. Harper quickly settles the class down. He doesn’t like being pushed back. ‘What I asked Mr Avery was, “What would you consider the most important adaptation for animals that evolution has ever produced?” Now, there are no wrong answers, highly subjective here, but I do have one in mind. Any takers?’ I immediately get to thinking about this riddle. Elliot removes his foot from his desk and lets his chair swing him forward back into a proper posture. He’s thinking too. I cycle through my knowledge in my mind, determined to win. The development of eyes? No, extremely helpful but there are always the other senses. The ability of flight? No, again, useful but species have been successful without it. ‘I’m loving the concentration you guys’ Harper beams proudly in this direction, now stepping out from her desk to pace the room. It’s impossible to tell whether she was looking at me or Elliot. ‘A very similar question may be on your exam so if you can think outside the box here you could potentially bump up your final grade’ she laughs as she wanders down between the two rows. The mention of bumping up their grades gets everyone else excited, even Ava pockets her phone and starts flipping through her notes. As everyone else joins me and Elliot, I briefly consider symbiosis, I’m tempted to throw my hand up but I pause, is there anything more important than even that? As the rest of the class scours the room with their eyes for hints or rummages through their books, Elliot and I are calm, both deep in thought. Ms Harper is at the back of the room now leaning on a shelf behind Ava and I. As I stare forward in thought, Elliot begins to turn. Time seems to slow, Elliot and I lock eyes as he extends his hand, the petty, unspoken challenge set for us filling the air with our spite. He smiles at me as his arm straightens and his wrist flicks his hand upright. Harper crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. ‘Ah yes Elliot?’ ‘Mimicry’ Elliot states, strong and confident. ‘Interesting answer. Elaborate?’ Harper chews at her top lip. ‘To avoid predation, to camouflage as a piece of landscape or another animal entirely is an unrivalled adaptation. In my opinion’ he concludes. Wow, he sure is trying hard. Harper brings her hands together and then up to her mouth. ‘That’s…Not bad’ she says. I see Elliot’s eyes widen and his nostrils flare. As I watch his face fill with rage, I see the snake in the corner of my eye and face it once again. ‘Camouflage is a fascinating thing without doubt, I’ve seen it in many species in my time, but there’s something else that gives some creatures the edge over others’ Elliot begins to argue his point but I tune him out and survey the creatures in their jars. There’s a certain uniformity to them. All floating in the same way, preserved in the same solution, all posed in the same way, with their most striking features facing the glass for us to study. Each one dead, alone in its jar. Alone. Separate. I’ve got it now. ‘Sociability’ I say aloud without meaning to. He faces me and I face him. I see his teeth clench and his cheeks redden, I realise now that I’ve interrupted him. We usually don’t have much to do with each other, I roll my eyes whenever his hubris rears its ugly...