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Chapters
Prolog
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilog
 
 
 

The Vault - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by NicoPony
Last updated: 08/15/2007 08:57:57 AM

Prolog

“We’re going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we’ll have all the power and they’ll have none.”

— The Stanford Prison Study, attributed to Philip G. Zimbardo

Todd Tolansky figured he was having a bad dream, and not the good kind he liked that featured a certain raven-haired girl of a witchy persuasion. Nope, this was a full-blown nightmare. He seemed to be suspended in some sort of gooey-green liquid, which for someone who called himself The Toad, wasn’t all that unusual. The unusual part was that he was trapped in a large glass cylinder, the kind you saw in the live-action special-effects disasters they showed on the SciFi Channel. Todd breathed stale oxygen through a respirator. He blinked sleepily, his vision blurred by the gooey-green stuff. Just beyond the glass cylinder was the bad guy. Todd knew he was the bad guy, because amidst the absolute weirdness of the surrounding chamber, the man stood out like a fly in a bowl of Cream of Wheat (coincidentally, The Toad’s favorite breakfast).

The man was tall and angular, with pallid skin and an expression of cold detachment on his face. His hair was black, as was his neatly trimmed beard. The part in his hair might have been drawn with a ruler, it was so straight. He wore a white lab coat, which perhaps was the most disconcerting. In the world of science fiction, goatees and lab coats were sure signs of evilness.

“Man, this’ll teach me not to eat grasshopper Gut Bombs before bed,” Todd said blearily.

“You awaken,” the man said, looking up from the device he held in his long, spider-like hands. The sound was muffled and echoed weirdly through the liquid.

“Yup, you’re definitely evil...nobody normal talks like that.” Todd languidly waved his arms, watching the goo swirl and eddy around him.

The man stared at Todd, nonplussed. The expression quickly faded into stoicism. “I have to say, Mister Tolansky, you’ve turned out to be quite the disappointment.”

“Well, if Principal Kelly hadn’t expelled me, I’d probably have brought up my shop class grade...at least by the end of the semester...to a C-minus, I swear.”

“My disappointment has nothing to do with your academic failures, Toad,” the man replied, turning Todd’s codename into an insult. “But your failure as an Homo sapiens superior.”

“Hey, what’d you call me!?”

“A mutant, Mister Tolansky. The next stage in human evolution. However, in your case, it appears that evolution is working backwards.”

The evil doctor turned away then, leaving Todd to struggle with a good comeback. He was never very good at witty repartee, even when he was in full control of his senses.

“I am dissatisfied with your performance as well, Destiny,” the tall man continued. Todd paddled up to press his face against the glass for a better view. The goo-filled tube appeared to be in some sort of dripping cavern. The high-tech gadgetry was incongruous with the strangely organic surroundings. The man was addressing a seated woman, also dressed in a lab coat. She wore dark glasses and held a white cane at her side.

“I only see possibilities, Doctor Milbury,” the woman replied. “Possibilities which change along with the choices that are made. It is unfair of you to judge Todd so harshly.”

“Mister Tolansky is clearly unfit...a genetic dead end. I would be doing the mutant race a favor by destroying him now.”

The woman Doctor Milbury addressed as Destiny stood abruptly. “I won’t allow you to do that!”

“My dear, you act as if you have any say in this experiment...an experiment twenty-some years in the making!”

“You told me when I first started working for you that we would only be observing mutant children, not experimenting on them!”

Todd did not like where this conversation was heading. His subconscious had cooked up this nightmare; he was seriously considering a visit to the guidance counselor in the morning. He put his fingers to his head and started massaging his temples. His eyes squeezed tight. “Wanda in a bikini...Wanda in a bikini...” It was a mantra that usually worked in the past.

“Do not seek to defy me, Destiny,” the man said coldly. “You’ll find the consequences for failure are quite...extreme.”

 

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