Chapter 2

Pete wandered into the kitchen still a little groggy the next morning. He had overslept and even though the heavenly smell of bacon hung heavy in the air, the serving plate was depressingly empty.

"Where's my bacon?" he whine.

"You're late." Snapped his mother.

Megan giggled and dramatically downed her last piece, acting as though it was the most wonderful thing she had ever eaten.

"Here, Pete." Said Mindy offering him the lone remaining strip on her plate.

"Thanks, but you don't have to do that."

"It's okay, I'm full. I wasn't going to eat it anyway."

"Thanks."

Pete smiled at Mindy gratefully and sat down to eat a relatively dismal breakfast consisting of one cold egg, one soggy piece of toast and a piece of bacon that was probably the best piece of bacon he had ever had in his life.

Megan snorted derisively, but his mother ignored the whole exchange by watching the news on the small TV on the counter.

Mindy stood and took her plate to the sink, "I'm going over to Wendy's house for a few hours," she said to no one in particular, "I'll be back later." She left the kitchen giving Pete a quick pat on the shoulder as she passed.

In less than half an hour Pete was again sitting in front of his video recorder with a vial of what he had decided to call 'hypno-juice.' He was still documenting and recording every aspect of his experiments. Heck, if this stuff worked half as well as he hoped, these recordings might someday be historical documents.

But it was more than that; Pete felt he was too good of a scientist to rush haphazardly into something this big. Patient and deliberate experimentation along with careful record keeping were simply the hallmarks of being a good scientist. If the experiment went well, the records would ensure that the same protocols were followed in future experiments, or they could be examined to see what went wrong in the event things didn't go so well.

"Test number two of hypno-juice commences now." He slugged back another dose of the exact same volume as the first time. Having learned from his previous mistake, he had placed a clock next to the video camera and he watched it intently. At exactly sixteen minutes the clock jumped ahead two and a half hours.

"Wow!" he told the camera with a smile, "I have no recollection of what happened. One second it was then, the next second it was now. There is nothing in between." He got off the stool yawning and looked into the camera again. "That ends experiment number two." He yawned again, this time adding a prolonged stretch, "I'm beat. I don't know what I told myself to do but it must have been..." he looked puzzled, "Isn't that odd - I made that tape last night and I wasn't under the influence of hypno-juice at the time. I should be able to remember. I suppose I could review the instruction tape to find out, but like I said, I'm tired so I'll do it later." He turned off the recorder and headed up to his room.

Lying on his bed he looked around the room at all the things he had felt were important enough to display and his eyes eventually fell upon his most prized possessions. His old beaten up How and Why Wonder Book's that he had found at a garage sale when he was eight. He remembered the lady who owned them had been asking a dollar a piece, he only had five dollars, couldn't decide which ones to buy and asked the lady if he could look through them to help him decide. She agreed but right about the time he finished reading the fourth one in its entirety she got tired of him standing in her driveway and let him have all eleven for the five bucks.

He scanned the spines reading the titles, 'Magnets and Magnetism, ' 'Electricity, ' 'Weather, ' 'Machines, and Chemistry' - all taught him how the world works. 'Planets and Interplanetary Travel, ' 'Rockets and Missiles' and 'Stars' sparked his imagination but it was 'Beginning Science, ' 'Science Experiments' and 'Famous Scientists' that had showed him how the scientific process worked and he had read them, over and over again. He still read Famous Scientists once on a while even though he knew it by heart. Truth be told, these days he pretty much just looked at the pictures of those who had made such great strides in advancing mankind, wondering what their lives were like.

How had their families treated them? Did they have bitchy older sisters who loved making their lives miserable? Did they steal their sister's silk panties so they could use them to pound their flounder and then get caught? Did their peers ostracize them? Pete didn't think so. Heck, as far as he could tell, most of them were married. Marriage was something Pete knew would never happen to him. He couldn't even say hi to a girl without getting the shit beaten out of him.

As he reminisced, he thought of how those books had changed his life. It was those books that had given him the idea that anything he ever wanted to know was available in books. He read voraciously, spending every waking moment in the neighborhood library. That was how he garnered his reputation as a bookworm. He even began spending most of his lunchtimes in the school library studying. Not studying what he was learning in school, he had surpassed his grade level long ago.

Shit, he could probably be a senior by now if his mother hadn't resisted the school's desire to let Pete skip grades. His mother was afraid he wouldn't "socialize" properly if he were placed with kids years older than he. Well he had news for that controlling bitch, he wasn't "socializing" properly now.

Sometimes he wished he weren't so smart. If he could dumb it down a bit maybe the other nerds would accept him. But their premises and methods were elementary and basic, quite simply, they were laughable, and he couldn't help but laugh at them.

Pete wondered what would have happened if he had never laid eyes on those damned books, maybe he wouldn't have become a nerd at all, maybe if he hadn't been in the library he would have been playing pick-up football and he today he would be with the football jocks, fucking girls like Carla and beating up pussies like him.

Those books started it. Those fucking books caused every beating he had ever taken. Those fucking books were why he was so damned lonely. Those fucking books had ruined his life. The more he looked at the fading colors on the spines the more he hated those fucking books.

Angry and determined he got off the bed and went down stairs and out into the back yard. Behind the garage he filled the burn barrel about half full with sticks from the brush pile and he soon had them burning fiercely. He added bigger pieces of wood until there was roaring fire and the barrel began to glow.

Going back up to his room he gathered up all eleven of the despicable How and Why Wonder Books, even Famous Scientists - he glared at the smug bastard on the cover, peering into a microscope. "Sure, maybe you were cool in your day," Pete thought angrily, "but being smart doesn't cut it anymore. Not in this day and age."

He carried the whole set out to the burn barrel and just as he approached close enough to feel the heat the world spun. Pete staggered due to the dizziness and suddenly he jumped straight up in the air and whooped with joy.

It worked!

He remembered everything, now. The heat had triggered his memory, just as he had instructed. He now knew that the drug could do everything he wanted it to. He had tested several aspects of its effects and all of them were successful. Not only could he make the subject forget what happened while under the influence, he could make them forget things that happened prior to being given the drug and he could allow them to remember all of those things, after having caused them to forget. Most importantly he could make someone do something entirely foreign to them - something they would never dream of doing, and make them think it was all their idea. Hell, he had even been able to make himself feel apathetic towards the experiment - he hadn't even been curious as to what instructions he may have given himself.

He considered the implications of this as he took his once again prized How and Why Wonder Books back up to his room and placed them carefully on the shelf.

It was almost lunchtime and he was feeling a bit peckish thanks to his small breakfast so he went to the kitchen to make a sandwich.

As a student of the Scientific Process, a young Pete had spent hours studied the various aspects of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, determining the perfect proportion of peanut butter to jelly and how much of the wondrous mixture was just the right amount based upon the size of the bread. Just as he was cutting it in half Mindy came in the back door.

"Hey, Min, want half a PB&J?"

"Sure, you make them good." She took the offered sandwich and opened the cabinet to get a drinking glass. "A little heavy on the peanut butter though."

"Thanks, I ... hey, wait a minute, I'll have you know..." Megan barged into the kitchen cutting him off.

"Was that Mindy coming in? There you are! I didn't say you could wear that sweater! I wanted to wear it tonight and now you've got it all dirty. Take it off."

"It isn't dirty a bit." Countered Mindy, unbuttoning the powder-blue sweater and peeling it off to reveal a thin white t-shirt that did very little to hide her dark brown nipples.