CFYC PLOT AND ROUGH DRAFTING

Gone

Oliver filed in line behind Douglass and Cassidy as the entire class climbed up onto the bus and sat down with another class from across the hall.

"Is your dad going to be there?" Cassidy asked, nudging him a little with her elbow. He rolled his eyes and pressed himself up against the side of the bus in flagrant effort to ignore her.

"My dad is!" Douglass popped up from behind the seat and leaned over to insert himself into the conversation. "He's presenting his new machine to the board of directors today and said that if it goes well, he can show it to our class too."

"No one cares, Douglass." Oliver huffed quietly. Cassidy smacked his head lightly, and he shot a glare at her, which she returned in kind.

"Just cause you're in a bad mood doesn't mean you can be mean to everyone else!" She started, smiling back at Douglass as a small apology to him.

The three of them settled down as the bus lurched forward and pulled out of the school lot so it could drive a whopping thirty minutes north to the AKAN lab.

He didn't want to go back, really, and hadn't been back since before the accident. It was closed for a few months, to get renovations.

It looked different, sort of, the back left building was entirely new, for reasons. The art piece at the center staircase up to the lab was the same though, and Oliver drew in a quick gasp at it and dropped his gaze back to the pavement.

Cassidy butted him softly with her shoulder, offering a consoling smile.

"You okay?" She asked, slowing her pace to try and veer him further away from the entrance to maybe calm the nerves she figured he had.

"I'm fine."

"Right," She replied almost sarcastically.
He shot another glare at her and fell back into the back of the crowd to avoid her.
He didn't need Cassidy trying to make him feel better about this place. She didn't need to make him feel better about his mom.

Oliver busied himself and his attention by picking at the gauze around his wrist until it started tearing off. Only to pass the sculpture, and the lab entrance, and to ignore the tour guide that spouted science crap.

Something swallowed him up there, and it wasn't the fact that he hadn't been here since before his mom was gone. That bothered him, yeah, but he sort of missed her- Dindet.

It was a weird comfort that he didn't think about often, and didn't think mattered until it was gone. He didn't have to deal with talking about how he felt, or people asking him if he was 'okay'. She just automatically knew when he wasn't, and she didn't really have to say anything.

Chris pulled up into the employee parking and scrambled out of his truck, tearing the bungee chords off of the tarp and folding it aside to reveal his completed project.

He ran up to the back door just as Abadi and Kistle pushed out of it, ready to help him pull the thing onto a dolly.

"I'll need another for the container." Chris mentioned, gesturing at the large glass tube that held an undulating unconcious Dindet inside. Kistle nodded and headed back inside to grab another one and the three of them wheeled the converter into the back entrance of the lab to prepare it for presentation.

"That's the thing you were talking about?" Abadi questioned, struggling to sit the tank upright.

"Yeah- I found most of it monday." Chris answered, hurrying to help the man so it didn't topple over. Abadi gave him a rather incredulous look before taking interest in the thing he found.

"You sure that'll work?" He glanced back at him, but Chris was already piecing together his machine.

"I've been testing it with low currents all week, it works great." Chris waved off his concerns.