Chapter 35

The week after Thanksgiving progressed quickly. I talked to Marcus and Ted several times throughout the week to get updates on how the build out of the prototype was going. At one point Ted actually had to tell me to calm down and let them work. He reminded me that Sunday meetings were when we did updates, and every time Marcus had to stop and give me the rundown on the project, was time he couldn't be actually working on it. He had a point. I was letting my impatience show through.

The other notable thing that happened was that Rachel had started to back off a little and started acting the way she used to. I didn't make a big deal out of it, but Jacob seemed relieved. I still planned on keeping my distance from her until we figured out what caused her weird behavior. The girls did a good job acting as a buffer between Rachel and me any time we were around each other.

I was ruminating on the Rachel situation when something caught my eye. There are multiple hallways that lead into the school's lunch room, and one is visible from where I usually sit, to the point where I can see part way down the hallway. What I saw were a couple of guys I didn't know, crowded around a girl. She was on the smaller side, and while couldn't see her face enough to pick up her expression, her body language screamed that she was uncomfortable and afraid. I left my stuff at the table and got up, headed in that direction.

I heard Zoe call my name, but ignored her, keeping focused on what was happening in the hallway. The three guys were starting to close in around her, and I was losing sight of the girl. I thought it was a little strange that no one was saying anything. When I got up to the small group, I could see the girl again, and she was looking concerned.

She was fairly small, about a foot shorter than me with very curly brown hair that reached just above her shoulders. She was petite but her face had strong features and a slightly large nose.

They had backed her against the wall. One guy was on either side, and the third was in front of her, only inches away.

"Is there a problem?" I said, standing right behind the guy in front of her.

I didn't recognize any of the three guys, and my guess was that they were in a higher grade, since I hadn't seen them around before.

The guy I was closest to turned and over his shoulder angrily said, "Get lost."

He never really looked at me, but his friend to the right grabbed his arm and pulled saying, "Doug, that's the Grey kid that was in all those fights."

The lead guy did turn, now, and had a slightly surprised look. I didn't know I had picked up a reputation, but it seemed to be working for me. I could see him battling between looking weak by backing down and trying to find a way to get out without a fight. His other friend saw it too and gave him an out.

"Doug, we are going to be late for class. Let's go."

He gave one glance at the confused and still scared girl, glared at me, and said, "Yeah, let's go."

All three guys turned and walked down the hallway. I watched them go and asked the girl, "Are you ok?"

I was surprised when no response came back so I turned and looked at her, "Are you ok?"

She nodded her head yes, but didn't say anything so I just piled ahead, "Is this your lunch period? Do you want to come sit with us?"

She looked nervous, but nodded her head 'yes.' I reached out, took her hand, and turned to walk back to the table, only to run into my three girls, plus Amanda, Josh, and Quam. I hadn't realized I had backup.

"Hey, guys."

Zoe smiled at me and took the girl's other hand, "You just can't help yourself, can you."

I shrugged as the girl kept looking back and forth between Zoe and me. When we sat down, I noticed something pass across Zoe's face. She turned to the girl and started making motions with her hands. I had no idea that Zoe knew how to sign. The girl looked surprised, and started making signs back.

Eventually Zoe turned back to us and said, "Guys, this is Sarah Jordan and she's a Sophomore. She said she doesn't normally speak, because she doesn't want people to make fun of the way she talks."

I looked over at Sarah, assuming by the conversation so far that she was able to read lips, "You don't have to worry about us, we would never make fun of you. What was with those guys?"

She looked down shyly then over at Zoe for a second before saying, "They like messing with me. I guess because I am different, they think its fun to pick on me. I have been in the same school as them for years, and they have always messed with me."

The way she spoke was different, but not that unusual. There was even one semi-famous actress I could think of that was deaf, and had the same kind of speech problems. I wasn't well versed on this kind of thing, but I assumed it was caused by learning to speak without being able to hear yourself.

This all flashed through my mind as I said, "I think I might have to go have a talk with them. If you want, you should come sit with us all for lunch. We would love to have you hang out with us."

She smiled at me then went back to signing with Zoe. The table managed to return to scattered conversation, but I felt Vicki grab my hand and give it a squeeze. When the lunch bell rang, we all got up and started to head out. Sarah signed something at Zoe, who gave her a nod in return. She turned around and pulled me into a hug, pressing her head into my chest.

She gave me a squeeze and partially stepped back to look up at me as she mouthed the words, "Thank you."

I noticed Zoe whispering to Tami. When Sarah let go of me, Tami walked up and took her hand.

"My next class is right by yours. Can I walk with you?"

She nodded, gave an over-the-shoulder look at me and Zoe, and the two headed off to class.

Zoe turned to me and said, "You did a good job. She gets picked on a lot, and doesn't have a lot of friends."

"She seems like a nice girl."

"Yeah, I think she is," She said, stopping to turn and look at me. "You can't help yourself, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Every time you see someone in trouble, you just have to save them, don't you?"

"I'll do it if I can. Would you have me act any other way?"

She pulled me into a hug very similar to the one Sarah gave me, "No, no I wouldn't. It's one of the things I like about you the best."

She released the hug, and Zoe, Vicki and I headed off to class.

A few minutes after we got home Alex called and said she had information for us. She had already called around to make sure everyone was free and I agreed that a family meeting was in order. The girls and I did homework while we waited. I noticed every time I looked up Tami was looking at me, only to look away when I made eye contact.

Eventually, I put my school books down and asked, "What's up, Tami?"

She was still looking around nervously but answered me saying, "I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell you this, because I don't want you to overreact. Judy told me last night she is worried about Tina. Apparently, this kid Mertz has been getting pretty aggressive with her, and she is afraid he is planning something for her. She doesn't have any specifics. She says it's just a feeling"

I started to get up, my temper flaring, but Zoe put her hand on one arm and put her hand on the other.

"Cas, calm down. We don't know what is going to happen and you can't just rush over and start beating up her boyfriend or yelling at people," Zoe said.

Tami nodded and said, "She's right, Cas. Judy promised she would keep an eye on Tina and let us know the second she found anything out or if anything got out of hand."

I wasn't happy with that, but Zoe was right, there weren't a lot of options right now. Nothing had actually happened yet. I tried to go back to studying, but I had a lot of trouble focusing.

When the time for the family meeting rolled around, I tried to push my thoughts about Tina down, because this was also important. Since we would all be focused on the family meeting, Mom brought home several pizzas instead of cooking. I was happy to see Alex had called Megan in addition to everyone else, further cementing her role as a part of the family, if not in the same way as Alex and Mom, or my girls.

When we were all seated around the living room munching on our pizza I said to Alex, "It's your show."

"We all know that after Angela's trip to the hospital we learned of some new effects of the change and some other possible effects, all of which opened the door to a lot of questions. Since then I managed to run most of us through new tests as well as some others you had all suggested, trying to run down a lot of the new possibilities. After we ran the tests Angela and I have been working on trying to make sense of it, and we have come up with some, but not all, of the answers to the new questions."

"First let's talk about the changes in loyalty and personality. This was possibly the hardest thing to lock down. We know so little about how personality actually works, why people act the way they do. We do know that if the brain is physically altered, through say an accident or brain surgery, people often have changes in personality, sometimes major changes."

"Thanks to the scans we had of Vicki, Angela, Tami, and myself before and after our change, we have seen some differences, in some cases pretty stark changes. Keep in mind, everything I am about to say is science's best guess. There is so much we don't know about the brain, but the attributes I am about to assign to areas of our brain come from MRI scans on hundreds, and in some studies, thousands of people to try and narrow down areas of control."

"The temporal lobe of the brain controls long-term memory, smell, and hearing and apparently affects our ability to pick up new languages. The processing in these areas seems marginally better in all of us; but, in Caspian, this area has significantly more activity. I am not sure why that is, or what effect that will have, but we need to keep an eye on that. In all of us, the Parietal Lobe is significantly increased. This area affects spatial awareness, comprehension, logic and reasoning. My guess is this is why everyone, myself included, has felt ... smarter for lack of a better word ... after the change."

"The other area that has an increase in activity is the frontal lobe, which controls voluntary movement, motor integration, and short term memory. However, this is part of the brain which also controls emotions and social functioning, and that is where this gets interesting. In everyone for whom we have before and after scans, the map of activity has changed."

I broke in to ask, "What does that mean?"

"In the other areas I discussed, the amount of activity was increased in all of us, but the physical areas of those parts of the brain that had more activity, didn't change. It was like there were more synapses firing to and from the same spots. In the frontal lobe, the actual places that were firing were different."