Galatea 2 - Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18: CONFLICTING DATA

“Professor! I came as fast as I could!” Brian exclaimed, nearly out of breath even as a man with great cardio. Dr. Giles had never sounded as desperate as he had during that phone call, which made the undergraduate all that more worried that something was seriously wrong at the one place that paid his bills.

However, upon entering the lab, nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary. Kevin wasn’t even in a drunken stupor like he had initially suspected. Instead, the professor was standing in the middle of the room, hastily tapping foot as he gripped his chin, deep in thought.

Giles was so thorough in his mulling that he didn’t even notice Brian was behind him until the student more audibly made his presence known, much to the fright of the professor.

“Ah, Brian! There you are! You startled me!”

“Er, I came as fast as I could, per your instruction,” he repeated. “What’s so important that you needed me here on such short notice?”

The professor looked both ways, as if fearful someone could be listening in, before leaning in to whisper his next words. “Brian, you must tell me, have you noticed anything unusual about Audrey in the recent months? Any developments that seem out of the ordinary?” Kevin looked desperate, yet clearly in a way he was trying to downplay.

At first, Brian wanted to answer honestly, inform the professor about Audrey’s shocking psammokinesis development. But then he thought about why Giles might’ve been asking. If this was a ploy to try and remove the virus from his loving girlfriend, there’s no way in hell he’d allow that to transpire.

“Nothing I’ve noticed, no.” Brian lied. “And if there was, she would have told me right away.”

“Okay, good. That must mean that whatever is occurring with Vanessa is an isolated factor. That will make it easier to distinguish and subsequently remove if possible.” The professor mused aloud, a curious brow raising on Brian’s face.

“What’s occurring with Vanessa, professor?”

Now it was Kevin’s turn to lie. “Nothing significant. Certainly nothing worth informing you over.”

He was not as good of a liar as Brian was.

But Brian didn’t pursue whatever his professor was clearly hiding. Despite knowing something was amiss, Giles still held a modicum of power over Brian in his job. The last thing he wanted to do was push his luck and say something he’d later regret. Not to mention, Kevin’s clothing could barely keep up with his rippling musculature.

“So, is that all, then?” Brian asked after a lull in the conversation.

“Yes, that will be all then.” Giles said definitively, dismissing Brian with a hand wave. “Very good work today, and such.”

Brian was a bit of a suck up, but not that much. As he walked away, he mumbled his grievances under bated breath. “Tsk, I can’t believe I drove all the way from the beach just to answer a question that could have been resolved over the fucking phone.”

“No, too risky via the phone, Brian,” Giles responded, his powerful ears cluing in on his intern’s private qualms. “I have a feeling they’re listening in. Waiting for me to slip up and say something they can hold against me in court.”

Brian just rolled his eyes. He didn’t put it past Giles to be paranoid, but this wasn’t some corny movie. The Government wasn’t listening in on everything his corky professor said, trying to listen in for gotchas. That was fantasy, this was reality!

Though, come to think of it, he had noticed some strange faces on campus that he hadn’t before…

***

Vanessa awoke upon the dawn of a new day, taking a deep breath full of fresh air. Talk about a beautiful morning! The birds were chirping, the breeze wafting into the window was cool, and her latest two boytoys slept soundly without snoring on either side of the bed.

Not wanting to disturb their slumber, she floated upwards from the middle of the bed. Engaging in a bid of childlike joy, she rotated her hourglassed form until she was upside-down, allowing her nimble feet to walk along the ceiling as she made her way to the kitchen. It was a surreal feeling, seeing the world upside-down, but she had to admit it beat tripping over discarded clothes and knocked-over objects from sexual trysts of old.

She shot one last look back at the two sleeping men, her steely gaze effortlessly worming its way into their thoughts for a quick peek at their mental wellbeing. Sure enough, their thoughts were pristine, still blissfully dreaming of mind-boggling feats of eroticism from last night. Fucking a beautiful girl was one thing, but fucking an uncomparable girl midair as she sensually jostled and bucked without the limitations of gravity was something else.

Even when no one was looking, her body movements remained sexually charged, hips sauntering sensually side-to-side even as she walked along the ceiling. She allowed herself a brief reprieve from ladyness as she gorged herself on the recently restocked fridge, airily giggling to herself as she basked in the pleasure that was her sheer existence.

She had done it. It had never felt better to be Vanessa at that very moment. And the best part, she hadn’t heard squat from that annoying little ‘moral compass’ voice in several days. Audrey? Caring about Brian and those beneath her? That was just unnecessary stress. And stress caused wrinkles.

The last thing she needed was to stoop down to their level. After all, she was a sex goddess. She could do whatever she wanted, read the minds of whoever she wanted, fly wherever she wanted, and she couldn’t wait to see what future improvements did to the “why”s and “when”s. She was perfection.

She was Galatea.

Vanessa paused, blinking twice. ‘Galatea?’ That word of all words to describe herself? That was just Kevin’s corny and rather misogynistic view of what he wanted her to be. She had never used such a word to describe herself outside of buttering up Giles for her own gains and never thought in a million years that she’d ever stoop to such a level when by her lonesome.

Something was wrong.

She sat down, with criss-crossed legs and still atop the ceiling, closing her eyes and using her own telekinetic powers on herself to investigate just what exactly could propagate such a stupid thought within her brain.

Nestled within a derelict corner of her mindscape sat the culprit, feeding her strange, foreign thoughts that weaved interchangeably with thoughts of her own. A tumor, one propagated by the virus. Her eyes rocketed open in disgust. She gripped either side of her head in distress, seething in agony though at the last second attempting to quiet herself down so as not to wake her two latest flings from their continued slumber.

Giles. That lecherous fucker. She thought, the powerful words striking at the tumor at the back of her head. Her brilliant mind immediately pieced together a narrative with the available knowledge. He knows that I’m becoming a liability and he’s trying to put a fucking damper on me! And it's one where I’m his subservient little puppet no less!

Vanessa’s breathing quickened, her shapely chest expanding and contracting rapidly as thoughts of betrayal and mind control washed over her. That fucking bastard! That. Fucking. Bastard. As her mindscape grew increasingly more chaotic, so too did the room around her. Several objects rose from their designated spots in the kitchen, vibrating rapidly as they joined Vanessa on the ceiling.

She slowly calmed herself down to the best of her ability. The kitchen appliances slowly returned to their designated locations as a slow trill of carbon dioxide blew past her plush lips.

“So, he wants to fucking play with me, hmm?” Vanessa chuckled darkly, a grim smirk spreading from ear to ear. “Well. First, I’m going to destroy this little tumor like I did goody two-shoes Vanessa. If Giles doesn’t like me when I’m playful. Then he’s going to hate me when I mean fucking business.”