MIT undergraduate Mitchell Cartwright had been a fairly serious, semi-motivated scholarship recipient who used a superficial portion of his intelligence to maintain a place on the Dean's List. Never one to party or take advantage of the social aspects of college life, he still enjoyed his initial years as a student at the prestigious university.
Mitchell was a handsome young man. An earnest smile and engaging blue eyes made quite a number of the university's female population want to be the one to draw the quiet, brilliant underclassman's nose from the proverbial book of his studies.
A year before graduating Mitchell signed up for a class that would fill the void left by the cancellation of a course on botany he'd been looking forward to all summer. The class was on human genetics and it's professor, brilliant. It was as if all the wonder of the universe suddenly unfolded before Mitchell's eyes and he began an earnest application of his substantial intelligence to not only his education but to the field of genetics itself. Mitchell literally began his course of studies all over from the beginning, keeping whatever class credits that applied to his new major and replacing the others with rudimentary courses that seemed beneath his attention. Having decided on a path to the study of genetics, the now-intrigued upperclassman was determined to do it right.
In almost record time he became Doctor Mitchell Cartwright, world-class scientist. Universally hailed as a kind of wunderkind in the field of genetic engineering, he considered his peers' acclaim to be a clearly stated edict to continue work that would unlock the very secrets of what it meant to be human. Accordingly, much of Mitchell's life revolved around his work. Long hours were spent in the lab. Whatever time remained was spent reviewing the data gathered from colleagues all about the world.
It was this singular devotion to the work that brought Mitchell to the attention of Genesis Project's Board of Directors. Genesis was a privately funded facility dedicated to the more cutting edge aspects of genetic research. To the average scientist, experiments and studies at Genesis were more like science fiction enactments than actual research.
Rare was the day when Mitchell took notice of the world outside his 27 million dollar electron microscope. It was a gift from a wealthy benefactor whose family carried the gene of one of medicine's most debilitating diseases. The magnate had donated it, selfishly he said, in the hopes that Mitchell might put an end to his family's medical curse before there were no more members left to call family.
Such support of his work always left Mitchell even more determined to make good on his benefactors' belief in his progress thus far. He never took a spare moment from the lab that was not absolutely required for one of the three tenets of survival: food, shelter, or basic human companionship. Currently, a desire for the third pulled him from the lab.
This evening Mitchell had invited his colleague Dr. Karen Stanton to dine with him. Dr. Stanton was a microbiologist specializing in bioinformatics. She’d been hired by Genesis to assist Mitch in his research. Karen Stanton would never be considered a beautiful woman, still the handsomely attractive scientist had a world-class mind and a cool dispassionate demeanor, two qualities Mitch was immensely drawn to. Thanks to Karen Stanton, he’d made several small breakthroughs in what he thought he knew about genomes. As a result, the research was now headed in an entirely different direction.
Karen had only been at Genesis a year. She was fresh off a mutually concluded long-term relationship with a fellow researcher and was quite open about her reluctance to enjoy anything more than a casual relationship. That was fine with Mitchell. He needed a bit of time, too, to get used to a dating scene that was totally different from the rare times he engaged in it.
Still, he hoped the evening would usher in another level of interaction between them, a more intimate one. As of the last month or so, Karen Stanton had been exhibiting all the signs of female attraction. She no longer moved away from accidental touch, but instead lingered a fleeting second more. The Doctor stepped just across the boundaries of Mitchell's personal space, making her willingness to engage in the physical quite apparent in her bright blue eyes.
The soft trill of the telephone sounded. It was an unwelcome intrusion on Mitchell’s thoughts. The phone’s nine note sequence had been scientifically proven to be the least disruptive to the human ear, yet at that moment it grated on Mitch like an iron rasp. “Hello!”
“Yes, hello, Doctor Cartwright! My name is Dara Hickley. I’m an elementary level teacher at St. Augustine Preparatory School - the one on Prospect Boulevard. I am at the school now and I have your sons with me.”
Mitchell blinked. “You have my sons with you?”
“Yes, sir, I do. Don’t worry, they’re fine!” the teacher reassured him. “They hitched a ride back on our school bus. We were coming back from an outing to the planetarium.”
“You have my sons...”
There was an odd pause. “Yes. Paul and Dylan. You do have two-”
“Forgive me, Miss ... Hickley, is it? You just caught me totally off guard. I was in the middle of preparing for an important event this evening and the last thing I expected to hear with this call was that Paul and Dylan were somewhere getting into trouble."
"They aren't really in trouble with us, Doctor Cartwright." Amusement bled through the elementary school teacher's tone. "Though they obviously suspect they are in trouble with you."
"Would you do me a favor, Miss Hickley? Let Paul and Dylan know that I am on my way to pick them up. And tell them they might want to start working on their stories.”
Dara Hickley laughed. It was a soft, musical sound that made the corner of Mitchell's mouth turn up, despite his irritation. "I'll do that," she replied. "The boys and I will be in the cafeteria when you come. All the others have gone but I'll be able to see your arrival from there."
"I am on my way."
