After another long drive Oliver Freddy and Inge return again to the lake in the mountains to the old familiar De Anda Hall.. and immediately Inge receives a message from Jefferey Dean about missing his party.. well, that was quick..
So annoying to miss out on an opportunity like that she thought...even though there was no way she could've gone to it, since she just got there...
Inge returned from her christmas vacation with a fresh mind and didn't want to
do much at first except for relaxing by playing an old nostalgic computer game
while waiting for the rest of their dorm mates to return...
..and then they were back, the same old crew, and Inge got up from her comfortable resting position to act flirtatious towards her boyfriend. He was hers, and she wanted everybody to know...
There was something in the air...
...and one of those things was Oliver Freddys thirst for knowledge.. and science. He still had the idea of human-plant hybrids in the back of his mind from the book he read earlier this year and wanted to collect as many samples as he could of humans, plants and animals to look for possible connections in the genome of these various forms of living creatures.. there had to be something, possibly, maybe, considering that wolf and human hybrids already existed in the area.. as was proven through Inges friend Samantha...
So with all this in mind, of course he asked Liz Tarry to get a sample of her DNA after a brief "hello" and "nice to see you again". She was skeptical at first.. what was he implying..? A sample of her DNA.. what excactly does he mean by that..?
..but then again, she knew very well that his request was literal – anything
else would be wishful thinking.. he simply wanted to bring out his machine and
get a sample.. there wasn't any more to it than that... ;)
She was happy though, when she saw the result – that it actually worked – that he managed to extract a sample and that her DNA was now in his hands..
..but then of course she had to insult his intelligence, because.. sometimes people do weird and unpredictable things when they got.. uh... feelings that they're not sure how to deal with... she couldn't risk having him think that she wanted them to be to close.. or something like that.. sometimes an attack is the best defence.. or so they say.
A similar situation happened in the room next door, where Inge had tried to be
friendly with Jonathan.. which, apparently wasn't well received.. She knew
very well, atleast from last year, that he had feelings for her, as he had
been very direct and upfront about it – and she had low key rejected him
already a few times – but still – since they were to live under the same roof,
she wanted to atleast maintain a friendly relation and stay on good
terms...
Yup, there were definately things in the air.. Inge knew excactly what was
going on as she passed them in the hallway to watch tv, and made sure to keep
an eye on Liz as she did so.. but wasn't to worried about the situation as
Oliver Freddy appeared to have it all under control..
..but does Inge have everything under control? Well, for the time being it looks like the answer is yes.. she is of course followed by Jonathan, and as he sits down on the couch she immediately starts talking about her thoughts for the future.. about having children, settling down and building a family, thinking it should be obvious who she is referring to when it comes to those plans – it certainly isn't Jonathan..
Oliver Freddys ambitions for now are different. If he should have any hope of figuring out how to create plant sims in the future, he should atleast be able to use the DNA samples he currently has to make a clone of something that already exists.. so he hurried over to the Student Union with his sample of Ansgar the anchovy to test if he could clone it.
He needed two test tubes, one with Ansgars DNA and another with the remaining building blocks, such as proteins, collagens and minerals to give the DNA something to work with to create an actual living organism..
..and then program the machine and set it to "Clone: Fish. Type: Marine (salt water)." and let it do its thing..
Success! It didn't look quite like an anchovy yet, more like the basic 'goldfish shape', but that was expected as the DNA needed some time to shape the building blocks. Give it a few hours, and it should be a perfect clone of an anchovy. The machine hadn't given any error messages, so he could only assume that it would..
The professors at the institute for technology and medicine should be
impressed now, right? Well, that's what he hoped as he ran over to present his
results to them, but alas.. they were not. Cloning of fish, and animals, was
well known in the scientific community, and had been since the first
controversial clone of Molly the Sheep already in 1996... 14 years before
Oliver Freddy was born even. His cloning of an anchovy wasn't very
groundbreaking at all.. but it was a big milestone for him, that already as an
undergrad he was able to successfully make a clone of a fish.. and not have it
die immediately.
They commended him for the effort, but not much more.. and then it was off to
the information meeting for this semester. The usual round of picking up the
curriculum and hanging out at the student union..
Inge had to pull herself away from the tv and the couch to head over too....
and that was a good thing. She was starting to think it was time to put some
distance between her and Jonathan for a while... and that juice keg in their
dining room started to get a little to tempting...
Of course, the information meeting is just the usual picking up items from the
table stand. They both look around for a teacher to talk to, but none is
found... now, being seasoned students and then some already they already know
the Student Union and the Campus area pretty well, but since no classes are
scheduled for today, they might as well just hang out here for a while..
Inge decides to check out the photo booth. Even though it has been there the entire time for the past two and a half years she's spent at university, she has never thought to use it before.. or rather, she has thought about it, but avoided having her picture taken as much as possible, because, well, being bullied and called a loser for as far back as you can remember may sometimes give you an aversion to watching images of yourself...
..but these past semester something has changed for Inge, and she is no longer the shy and timid self that she was right at the start of her freshman year and actually gets invited to parties.. which is more than what can be said about her boyfriend. He has gone the opposite way.. in the begining he was the most popular of the couple, but now all he cares about is nerding about with his science stuff all day long...
So not very surprising he has gone into the lecture room downstairs to practice holding a lecture about his findings already.. it's going to be useful that one day when he has discovered how to not only clone humans, but splice the DNA og humans and plants to create a form of living, well, human-plant hybrid..
Inge is more into leisure and sports, and decided to challenge Paris Vanderbuilt for a game of table tennis, one which she won with ease, since she's had plenty of practice playing with Oliver Freddy from earlier.. when he was still cool...
...and with increased confidence from this victory, why not head for the photo
booth a second time? You know, just to save and preserve the look of this
pretty winners face for all eternity.. or for atleast as long as the paper the
photos are printed on will last...
..and Oliver Freddy? He had gone outside to examine the skeleton and take
notes of how it worked and the human bone structure.. Plants don't have bones,
that much was obvious, but human-plant hybrids would probably need some kind
of bones.. and as such he had concluded that making rigorous notes for himself
on the human bone structure would likely come in handy.. for later use...
..before returning to the dorm where he stopped outside to do the excact same
thing, with even more questions to be answered.. will a plant-human hybrid be
made mostly of human flesh or will it be more like a plant? And if it would
mostly resemble a plant, how would it be capable of moving? Would it be
possible for them to have some kind of muscular system? Would a plant/human
hybrid have a physical heart? A bloodstream? He didn't know.. but for a
plant/human hybrid to be a living, breathing and moving organism it would
probably need to? Or something that would work in a similar way?
After having done that he went inside to browse Simbook for a while, but probably shouldn't have as it usually ends up being an aggravating experience reading the comments and watching all the laughter from the science deniers that always have to spread their lack of understanding and comprehension (and laughing emojis...) under near every article posted by some of the pages he follows... the creation of plant sims is not a laughing matter, he believed it could be done.. and having plant/human hybrids might even be of benefit for the future since they might use their photosynthesis to remove carbon from the air...
..well, anyway, while he was doing that his girlfriend was having a much better time, now having decided to waste some money to have a little fun on the arcade machines until she got a message on her phone.
It was yet another party invitation from Jefferey Dean. A new semester is always a reason to celebrate, so he was holding a swimsuit juice-keg party over at his place. Inge loved every moment of this, of being popular, and she had kept every party invitation she had received on her phone and would sometimes read them over and over again to remind herself that she was finally one of the cool kids whenever she started to slip and feel a little down – like the loser she once was, but never wanted to be... time to go!
When she arrived the house was empty, but a note was left in the hallway
informing everyone that the juice keg was in the garage, so have your swimsuit
ready and follow the music!
Inge was excited for this party, but I'll be honest.. aside from the occasional person stripping naked and people helping each other to the juice kegs, this first party of the semester didn't really take off all that much. ;)
A swim suit party in january is perhaps a little special, and most people
found it more fitting to put their clothes back on, including Inge. Walking
back and forth between the house and the garage with snow to above their
ankles was just to cold for most of them, even with a little bit of juice in
the system.
Inge could count on Jonathan to be her trusted friend to help her getting a
little juiced, however people were pretty chill at this first party, there
weren't really any accidents, no fights or wild, crazy behaviour.. maybe they
students are showing some signs of growing up, or maybe they just want to keep
their minds sharp for the beginning of the semester.. When they're done with
this one they've actually been at it for three years now, so they should start
to get a little seasoned...
Back at the dorm Oliver Freddy wasn't just sciencing, but had gone upstairs to
relax by practicing some pool, before feeding Ansgar (the first anchovy) and
placing Ansgar II (the cloned anchovy) in his fish bowl. However...
Ansgar I clearly hadn't been fed over christmas (quite possibly..) and was already on the brink of death, and by the time Oliver Freddy was done practicing pool it was already to late..
..but atleast he could get a sample of the old Ansgars DNA to make sure that
he would somehow still live on anyway, and of course, to have something to do
further research on in the future...
Even though Ansgars purpose in life had turned out to be mostly a 'guinea pig' for science, Oliver Freddy had become a little attached to the little fellow, and wasn't very happy about him having to go this way, but there was no choice now.. maybe he should add it on his to-do list to figure out a way to revive the dead, but for now..
..rest in peace Ansgar. Hope your new life in fish heaven will be a good
one...
In memory of Ansgar the anchovy (Ansgar I)
(date of birth unknown – 14.01.2024)
Ansgar is dead. Ansgar is not dead...
Well, meanwhile, back at the party Inge was feeling excited at Jonathan
deciding to roam around in his birthday suit inside the garage, while heading
back into the house to stand in line for one last drink..
Maybe that would make this dull party seem a little more lively.. just one more, it'll be fine..
..now in this case, maybe it's lucky for Inge that she has a boyfriend that is thinking about her, or who knows how this might have ended.. ;)
Oliver Freddy wanted to go to bed to get a good nights sleep because they're
having their first lectures of the semester tomorrow, and knowing his
girlfriend as of late he expected she was at a party somewhere, and decided to
send her a message to remind her to take it easy and to consider coming home
to get some sleep.. which made Inge strangely excited.. ;)
..well, it might be for the better.. this party was pretty boring anyway. Had
Jefferey began to lose it? He clearly wasn't hosting wild and crazy parties
like he used to.. Maybe he wasn't as cool as she thought when she first met
him? She wasn't sure what it was, but somehow now going to these parties felt
a little stale... was she starting to get 'old' already at 21? She hoped not..
it was probably just this party being lame, so..
..the best thing she could do was probably to listen to her boyfriend and go
back to the dorm. Not worth it to lose valuable sleep over a party that's
nothing but a drag.. and it was likely the wisest decision she made that,
because shortly thereafter a police car pulled up next to the sidewalk just
outside.. getting in trouble with the law would definately not be worth it
over this, time to get out of there..
...and go to sleep.. but not without creating a little piece of art next to
the door to their room. This was her territory, so of course she had to leave
a mark.
It's not guaranteed she will feel as happy about this the next morning when
she wakes up, but for now...
..good night. ;)
(Oliver Freddy may just be having nightmares about Ansgars death...)
