four. mind control

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NEVER, IN HER ENTIRE LIFE,  did Florence skip school. Unless she was on her death bed, the teenager was certain that she'd never miss a day of school since she had perfect attendance since second grade.

Until today. 

Florence was in her room changing when she made the decision. 

Her room was a simple room; pastel yellow walls with an antique dresser and bed frame. Her window was bordered with multi-colored Christmas lights. Next to her dresser was a vertical mirror that was littered with pictures and polaroids. 

The green-eyed brunette was wearing a simple outfit; a pair of blue jeans with ivory knitted sweater and Converse. Florence slung her black backpack over both of her shoulders and grabbed her poorly cleaned textbook before carefully opening the door to the hallway. 

Her father was usually awake when she'd walk to school. He had his own classes in the morning and would be sitting in the kitchen with two cups of coffee for him and his daughter. 

But today, there was no sign of Davis but rather a voice coming from his room. 

"Datalog 451. I've ceased mutagen treatments in Florence's food... She was getting suspicious of the daily dosages so I had to stop for a period of time. She hasn't shown any signs of mutation for a few weeks, but her accelerated intelligence continues. I've noticed signs of quicker reflexes. The mutagen will continue its work in small dosages every other week. . . I-"

 There was a heavy sigh. 

"Dosages are still low enough to reduce any chance of radioactive energy waves alerting the Kraang." 

Florence couldn't understand what she was hearing. It was as if her brain refused to process the information. 

Her own father? Giving her mutagen? 

Her skin was cold, clammy. Something told her to walk in there and confront him, but fear kept her rooted in place. It had to be for a reason. Her father was a scientist... but maybe he was keeping something from her that she deserved to know. 

Florence looked at her hands, eyes watering. 

She felt fine. There wasn't any change of color in her skin or abnormal growth of teeth or nails. It hardly looked like she was changed at all. Perhaps she was smarter than normal kids her age, but she assumed that it was because her father was a scientist and she simply inherited his affinity for learning. 

A shaky breath left Florence's trembling lips as she wiped her eyes and straightened her back. She shook her head and pushed up her glasses before stomping her feet as if she was walking down the hall. 

Her father's voice dropped to a low whisper and the datalog that he was recording ended. 

Florence plastered a smile on her face, her cheeks feeling like painful plastic as she entered the room. 

Wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a black tee-shirt, her father gave her a tight smile, one that held hesitance in his eyes. It was a plastic grin, completely fake. 

She kept her gaze fixated on her father, uneasily watching as he shuffled to the side of his bed and set down the small recorder that he had been speaking into.

By no means was her father as thin and stereotypical as most scientists. Her father had a well-balanced amount of muscle and fat. He had the body shape of an average male but was considerably taller than most. He towered over Florence and regularly had to tilt his head down to look at her. 

"Heading to school?" He asked kindly.  

Florence's mind was screaming. She didn't know what he was hiding and it scared her,but she refused to show it. She simply nodded and pointed to her empty wrist. 

"Yeah, I'll be running late if I don't start walking now. Are you about to leave for work?" 

Davis Carter looked into his room, his eyes landing on the clock. He quickly calculated the time before giving Florence a short nod. 

"Yeah, I need to be at the lab early for a lecture today." 

"Good luck," said Florence as she turned and walked out of his bedroom. She stepped into the small kitchen, forgetting to make a coffee as she ventured towards the front door. "I'll see you later Dad." 

Davis bid his daughter farewell, watching from the hallway as she ran out. A sigh escaped his lips for a few seconds as he turned and shut the door to his room. A few minutes later, he emerged dressed in a tie and suit with a black briefcase next to him. 

Watching from the window of the emergency exit, Florence held her breath and watched with narrowed eyes as her father, dressed much more formally than usual, walked down the hall. He poured himself his usual cup of coffee, black with two sugar cubes, and checked his phone. 

Davis adjusted his tie and sipped from the mug. When he reached the door, he set the mug on the small coffee table and walked out of the door. Florence waited a few moments for her father to exit the apartment building before she opened the emergency window that she had purposefully left unlocked. 

The girl slipped into the room, shutting the window with a click and locking it. Quicker than usual, Florence slung off her backpack and threw it on the floor next to the couches before she put her brown hair up and ran into the lab. 

She rapidly adjusted her safety goggles over her glasses and threw on her black apron before getting to work. 

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Jerry was an albino mouse who was usually Florence's test subject on most of her less dangerous experiments. Usually, she would put Jerry through every test and he'd make it out as fine as ever, yet today was different for little Jerry.

Instead of creating a safe dye for his fur or a new vitamin solution for her little pet, she was using him as the basis for the mutagen. 

Florence remembered naming the small mouse when she was little and her father had gifted the mouse to her on Christmas. She called him Jerry after her favorite cartoon.

Now Jerry was sitting contently in his small cage with his white furry stomach against the soft ground. Its eyes were shut yet it felt Florence's hard gaze as she stared at it through the glass. 

She chewed her lip, her uneasiness causing her to hesitate. 

Her entire lab was set up behind the cage; the flasks were connected with the glass tubes which were then connected to the massive boilers that would heat up all of the contents. Glass tubes snaked across the entire island counter, oddly resembling the jungle gym at Chucky Cheese. 

Slowly, the girl took the mutagen canister and slowly poured droplet by droplet into the funnel. It slid down the tube and into a large circular dome where the small bunsen burner was burning underneath it. 

As she observed, she wrote everything down with no missing detail in a small yellow notebook labeled, 'Observations'. There, she also wrote the formula that she was tweaking and adjusting as she continued to mix chemical liquids with the mutagen.

Soon, the liquid was boiling, causing the mutagen's gasses to snake around and spin through the glass tubes. It dripped into a large container of the pink liquid that Florence had used before. Whatever condensation that remained on the wall dripped down into the liquid, slowly combining to create a light red liquid.

Florence's shoulders relaxed, a wide smile on her lips. The red liquid was her goal and after messing up 19 times, she finally managed to get it right. 

From then, the content traveled through the snake-like maze of tubes once more before slowly beginning to drip into one large glass container. Under it was a drip, allowing drop by drop to fall into a small flask that Florence had placed at the end. 

When the red liquid had reached the top, she closed the drip and let the rest of the contents to collect. 

Florence transferred the red liquid from the flask into a syringe and from there she walked over to Jerry's cage. She opened the cage with a clink, causing the albino mouse to jolt awake and obliviously wiggle its nose. 

The girl grabbed Jerry and muttered a sympathetic apology before sticking the needle in the small area behind its head where the spine met the skull. The mouse squeaked and writhed but after a few seconds, it completely stopped and went still in Florence's hand. 

Florence carefully set him back in his cage and crouched to get a better look. Her eyes widened when she saw the mouse's eyes flash red before returning to their solid black. 

Yet still, nothing was happening. 

A frustrated groan left Florence's lips as she ran her hands through her hair. She didn't understand why she couldn't change the chemical makeup of the mutagen. All she wanted was to experiment on ways to use the mutagen for healing or medicine. 

There had to be some way she could make good things with the mutagen that proved to be powerful during her tests.

"Do something!" She yelled with frustration to the mouse that remained perfectly frozen in one spot. "Run around, eat, do anything!" 

There was a red flash in the mouse's eyes as it turned and began to walk in an exact square. Florence didn't notice at first, but when she heard the faint sound of shuffling, she turned her head and narrowed her eyes.

The mouse continued shuffling in a perfect circle before Florence muttered, "Stop?" 

And the mouse stopped in its place and wiggled its nose, acting normally. 

Florence's eyes widened and a smile appeared on her face. She cupped her mouth, her entire body shaking with a mix of delight and terror. 

"Run on the mouse wheel."

Jerry froze and tensed before it walked over to the mouse wheel and began to run, abiding by Florence's orders as if it had no mind of its own. 

"Holy crap," breathed Florence as she sat back in the swiveling chair. She watched the mouse continue to run, its eyes glowing red. 

"I did it." 

But Florence wasn't done yet. 

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edited: April 14, 2020