10
By the morning after the party that ended Emory’s doctoral dreams, all his belongings were stuffed into a bulging black trash bag because he’d never bought himself a suitcase, which would’ve only collected dust and taken up space in an already-small room.
The sun had barely poked its head out when the email about his scholarship being officially revoked pinged in on his student account, which would soon be deactivated, as if Emory had never been there. That was how he passed through the world anyway.
Every time he left a foster home, he made the bed, returned what few possessions the guardians had bought for him, and quietly exited with his social worker.
Within a few days, another less difficult kid would surely be sleeping in that bed and playing with those toys, and everyone in that house, on that street, in that school would forget about little Emory Griffin with the long face and the beloved chemistry set.
The email ended with contact information for the financial aid office so he could seek alternative means of paying the tuition. As if he had any chance in hell of securing a loan. As if he could mentally carry the burden of a loan when he was already carrying so much.
Before he left his apartment for good, from inside the trash bag, Emory fished out his banged-up childhood chemistry kit.
It was the one and only gift he’d ever received from his birth mom, whose real face had almost been wiped from his memory.
On the side of the rectangular, durable-plastic carrying case was a peeling, fading sticker of a young boy holding a graduated cylinder full of orange liquid while a white, brown-haired woman stood behind him, supervising and smiling.
When he thought about that fateful day when his mom left him—which he rarely did, as a rule—it was the model on the sticker he saw walking away and never returning, not whoever actually gave him up and left him all alone.
Perhaps that’s how he was supposed to be.
You’re born alone, you die alone, yada yada yada.
As he hovered the kit over the trash can, he remembered the albino mouse left concealed back in the lab.
The pair had been through too much together.
If he left the little guy—whom he’d decided to name Marvel Jr. after his Benedict Arnold of a roommate—behind, he risked further scrutiny and invited more mockery of his work.
Besides, having a companion, even one small enough to fit in his pocket, would make the journey toward whatever came next less daunting.
Stealthily, he snuck into the physiology and pharmacology building and swiped himself into the off-limits lab, breathing a sigh of relief when his badge still worked.
As soon as he flicked on the light, he heard his mouse friend scuffling around inside his cage.
“It’s me,” Emory whispered into the room.
“Don’t worry. I’ve come to take you with me. ”
When he slid out the cage and pulled off the sheet, he reared back in shock. The cage was empty despite the door being locked. None of the wire had been chewed through.
He leaned in closer, afraid his brain was playing tricks on him. The squeaks came again, loud and clear.
There, among the cage liner, was an unmistakable indent about the size of the mouse.
Grabbing a flashlight, he flicked the high-intensity beam into the cage.
Hundreds and hundreds of little red lines crisscrossed in the approximate shape of the mouse.
Its circulatory system was as clear as if it were a printed textbook illustration.
He pulled on a pair of gloves that he got from a nearby box and reached his shaky hands into the cage. They landed on a firm, undeniable mass. An unmistakable living, breathing mass.
He didn’t know exactly when or how, but it had worked.
The serum had turned the mouse’s tissue colorless, creating an organism that neither reflected nor absorbed light.
Instead, the light passed through, as if the mouse weren’t there.
But it was. The weight of it in his palms and the swiftly moving blood were all the proof he needed.
In his hands was confirmation that his inquisition was not for nothing, not impossible. Yes, he had overlooked the red blood cells ferrying oxygen through the mouse’s veins, but this was a start. It was more than a start; it was a downright gigantic discovery.
A laugh bubbled up and out of him, cracking through the lab like a whip.
His first instinct was to call out for someone, anyone. Come quick! Look what I’ve discovered! I told you! I told you all! But he bit his tongue.
Not only would they have immediately attempted to poke holes in his research, but they might’ve swooped in and taken ownership over his work. He’d seen it happen before. A student had a breakthrough, and the faculty seized an unhealthy dose of the credit.
He couldn’t allow that. It would be only his name on the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, only his face splashed across the nightly news.
The world—including his birth mom, if she was even still out there somewhere—would have no choice but to see bright-eyed, brilliant Emory Griffin in all his glory.
Maybe then she’d finally come back for him.
Holding Marvel Jr., Emory realized that giving up was simply not an option.
If he planned to take the science world by storm with the greatest publication in damn near a decade, he needed to continue working, and he needed to work fast before someone equally smart and fastidious beat him to the punch.
The only way he could do that was to escape the school without notice and shut himself off from the world. He’d get a survival job to meet his needs and pay for equipment and a no-frills room to call his own. Preferably with a stimulating view and ample quiet so he could focus.
Before he could safely exit the building undetected, a clicking pen and the overwhelming stench of coconut shampoo assaulted his senses.
Instead of facing his erstwhile roommate, Emory slipped into a small supply closet.
He struggled for several seconds to haul his uncooperative trash bag of belongings in with him, but he got the door shut in the nick of time.
“Oh, he’s gone gone,” came the unmistakable and annoying voice of Marcus Marvel from the other side of the wooden door.
Emory shuddered. “I heard him leave while I was getting dressed. He’d cleared out all his stuff.
Not that he had much of it to begin with.
He practically lived like a monk. He barely ate.
Barely slept. I never got him. Why can’t some people just be normal? Whatever. Goodbye and good riddance.”
A feminine-sounding laugh followed.
Anger bloomed hot and fresh in Emory’s chest. He considered bursting out of the closet and showing them proof that he was not only normal but also brilliant!
Beyond brilliant! But the risks were too great.
Instead, he’d bide his time, perfect his research, and then—and then!
—he’d be the one who got the last laugh.