Still working on it. If you're a random person that reads this give me advice (I doubt random people will read this)

1. 1“The Goldfish Disaster”2“The Goldfish Cancer” name list, 1 4 2 33“Gold Cancer”4“Gold Death”5”The Life Substance”6”Spooky Goldfish Death Spawn”<br />Dr. Winthrop – creator of substance C14<br />Scotty Beakerman – main character<br />Zach Miccorny – smart dude<br />Jacob Osborne – no comment<br />Stephanie Pelonzonni – Mrs. Pelonzonni, school teacher, mudslide talker<br />Innana Denali –smart chick<br />Kassidy Travis – quiet girl, stops arguments<br />Bre Tweeneen – PUFFER FISH<br />Skyler Brown – hated by Scotty<br />Mike Beakerman – father, drunk<br />Dr. Jim Walter – associate of Dr. Winthrop<br />John Long – Government Dude (omit? Bris idea)Captain Antle – captain of fire department <br />Greg Miccorny – Zach’s brotherDr. Winthrop has to wake up by going through a spooky hell dream where a 13 year old chick who looks like she’s 20 has him trapped in some kind of dream/test.The goldfish go to a nuclear power plant (already thought of ) but then they climb in and become GIANT!<br />Walter climbed out window before collapse, that’s how he lost his jacket, and is evil, wants to destroy fail safe. That’s why he didn’t remind Dr. Winthrop during mudslide. GREG TAKES GOLDFISH HOME AND PUTS THEM IN A BOWLDr. Walter added something to substance C14 so things actually wouldn’t die after 24 hours so he could give himself immortality by injecting it into his blood stream.Back story of how they came to discover everything it worked on.perhaps an accident before school so zach beuing guilty is more acceptable.<br /> Dr. Winthrop was excited. His invention was finally gaining popularity. He had created a molecular compound with the ability to give life to otherwise non-living objects, and it could give these objects humanoid characteristics. It could make a plank of wood grow legs and a head. It could give an innocent block of cheese arms. Dr. Winthrop had gained millions in just a few short weeks out of endorsements from top scientists across the globe. It was going to be the next invention to change the world, and Dr. Winthrop knew he had gained his place in history beside Newton and Einstein. The substance was an accidental discovery. Dr. Winthrop was actually trying to learn more about cancer, and was experimenting on rats. He had created a carbon compound which he thought could target cancer cells, and when he tested it on the rats nothing happened. Dr. Winthrop simply put it to the side, with all the other failed experiments and compound he had discovered in his quest to cure cancer. However, one day, as he was disposing of a dead rat, he tripped and fell onto his desk. The rat went with him and landed on the desk, and he broke the vial containing Substance C14. The rat came back to life, but only for a short time. During this time he met Dr. Walter, a long time friend who was also interested in cancer. Those interests, however, quickly faded when they realized that Dr. Winthrop had accidently created a life potion. After many weeks of experimenting with the substance, they had made it capable of keeping rats alive for two months without any support after it was brought back. Dr. Walter was fascinated with the idea of immortality with the substance, while Dr. Winthrop was only interested with the experimental and applicable purposes of it for science. Dr. Winthrop changed the chemical formula, and engineered it keep animals alive for only 24 hours, and began experimenting on other animals. One day, as they were experimenting on a cat with the substance, Dr. Winthrop accidently spilled the substance into the trash can. There was a rotten peach in there, but when the substance came in contact with the peach it looked like it had just fallen off of a peach tree. He took a bite from the peach and it was alright too, and he didn’t get sick. He began experimenting with other foods, he could make a wide variety of food that was rotten or dead edible again. He tried using the substance on rocks and minerals, but to no avail. He finally came to the conclusion that the substance would only work on things that were once living. It could bring a cat back from the dead, make an apple edible, or unpasteurized milk; because that was natural milk. The compound was a versatile compound. It was a purple liquid that was contained inside a small 50mL vial with a dropper on it for easy dispensing. 50mL of this compound had the capability to give 50 things, regardless of size, life. He also made a second compound that could kill anything brought to life by Substance C14 instantly. This was a great fail safe in his opinion, and would prevent any defects from possibly killing people. Dr. Winthrop only had 500mL of the compound, but he was prepared for mass production of it. He had the formula of the compound saved onto his computer and a print out of the formula on his work desk. He also had it committed to memory. He kept both formulas at his work place, his office was the safest place he knew of in Valencia, and it was about to rain, so he was heading home. It was 4:30, and Scotty Beakerman was heading home from school. He lives in sunny Valencia, California. He was a 13 year old boy with a tendency to cause trouble, and a fiery temper. He was somewhat short for his age, only 5 feet and 1 inch tall. He had medium length brown hair and grey eyes. He had a few freckles on his face, and he loved to eat food. Scotty was also smart. He was a strategist. He knew what was right or wrong and he knew that there was always a consequence for any action taken and he knew how to talk his way out of almost any situation. His dad was a lawyer, and his dad taught him how to behave and think like a lawyer and how persuasion can be used to gain just about anything. However, regardless of how well thought out a plan is, or however persuasively he can speak, a plan can still end up backfiring and causing trouble. This was the reason why Scotty was being driven home from school at 4:30. He was mad at a boy named Skyler Brown for harassing him at lunch, so Scotty waited until after school to jump him and start a fight. He saw that Skyler was sitting in an empty hallway so he charged him and began fighting. However, Scotty did not know that Skyler’s mom was a school teacher and that Skyler was waiting outside of her door. Mrs. Brown heard the commotion and quickly ended the fight, but not before giving Scotty after school detention. Scotty’s father, Mike, was angrier with him than Mrs. Brown was with him. Mike despised fighting of any sort, and believed that compromise was the answer to anything. Mike also believed that people who failed to find compromise should be punished severely. Mike was torn between grounding Scotty for 2 weeks or forcing him to do a mountain of chores. He knew Scotty would despise both choices. They stopped at a liquor store, and Mike went inside while Scotty waited in the car. Scotty hated how Mike drank so much. Ever since his father and mom had divorced he had been getting drunk almost every night. Sometimes Scotty would wake up and be unable to find his father, who stumbled out of the house to some random place. Some morning Scotty would find Mike 3 blocks away in a ditch passed out. Scotty saw Mike leaving the store. He sighed when he saw all the beer that Mike was carrying. The person working the cash register probably knew Mike by name because he came so often. Scotty sighed again and put on his seat belt. Mike got in the car and they began heading home. After a few minutes of silence, Mike said, “So Scot, do you have any homework tonight?” “Just a few algebra problems and a paper for English class.” Mike’s reply was simply a shrug. Scotty was pretty sure that the only thing Mike cared about right now was grounding him and drinking a beer. After a few more moments of silence, Mike said, “You’re going to mow the lawn when we get home and then you’re going to clean the windows and vacuum. If you can do all of that without complaining I’ll let you off the hook for fighting, but if it ever happens again you’re grounded for a month.” Scotty was ecstatic, a few hours of work was way better than being grounded for 2 weeks! The pair arrived at home a few minutes later, and Scotty immediately began work on the windows. It would be the longest job, probably taking well over 2 hours. He lived in a decently sized house with brick walls and a metal roof on it. It had many windows on it, and these windows had not been cleaned since his dad got divorced. That was over a year ago. After spraying window cleaner on the first window and scrubbing it with a paper tower, Scotty immediately began to regret fighting Skyler. The windows were coated with layers of dead bugs, dirt, and pollen. It took him five minutes of scrubbing just to clean one window. Being the strategist that he is, he changed his cleaning method after that. He simply got a garden hose and blasted each window, allowing for a water trail of pollen and dirt to form tiny streams through his yard. He would then use the window cleaner and make the windows look pretty. It made the job faster, and much less disgusting. The tiny streams of dirt and pollen also reminded Scotty of the mud slides that had been occurring in other parts of California recently. Scotty finished cleaning the windows, it took about 80 minutes, and began mowing the lawn. “This is going to be so easy, mowing the lawn doesn’t even take a whole hour!” he said to himself. However, to his dismay, after 20 minutes of mowing he began hearing the rumbling of thunder in the distance. A storm was approaching. He frowned and started mowing faster; he did not want to be mowing during a storm. To his good fortune, just as the rain began to fall he had finished mowing the yard. He vacuumed the house and began his homework. He had finished his algebra by 7:30, so he ate supper and played on his computer for a bit. He took a shower and went to bed at 10:00. It had been raining for 5 hours now. Dr. Winthrop was on the phone with a dear friend of his, Dr. Jim Walter. Dr. Walter had helped him stabilize Substance C14 and was an enormous influence on him while he was testing it and experimenting with it. He was also the only other man who had the formula for Substance C14 memorized. He knew how to make the Substance and how to create the failsafe that would kill anything brought to life by Substance C14. They were discussing the day to put the substance on the market. They had already gone through all the legal processes required to produce, distribute, and sell the substance, but they wanted a good date to release it. “I think we should wait until August, waiting another two months would increase the public’s anticipation to have it, and would probably raise demand “I honestly think we need to run more field tests on it. We should just wait until January so we are one hundred percent positive that it has no flaws! We aren’t even sure if the fail safe devices even work to their full potential! I know you’re a careless man Dr. Winthrop.” “I may be a careless man, but I am no fool. I would only release something with this much potential if I was positive that it would work and it would work properly.” “Do you even know wha-” There was a sudden clap of thunder. The power at Dr. Winthrop’s house was knocked out, and with that his conversation with Dr. Walter ended. He walked around his small house, content with what he had but ready to move into something bigger when he becomes rich off of Substance C14. He found a flash light and headed down to his basement, it was raining hard and he was searching for a battery operated radio so he could get a weather report since his power was out. After a few minutes of searching, he found what he wanted and went back upstairs. He placed the radio on the table and turned the dial, trying to find a radio station giving a weather report. The only thing the Weather Channel told him was that it was going to rain for a long time. It had been raining for 6 hours now, and Dr. Winthrop was beginning to get annoyed by the constant torrent. He finally decided it was time for bed and after a few minutes of tossing and turning, he finally got comfortable and fell asleep. He dreamed about living in a mansion on some island in the Caribbean, and being world famous. Dr. Walter smiled when Dr. Winthrop hung up. The plan that had been fermenting in his head for so many months was being turned into action. Dr. Walter was never actually interested in the scientific purposes that Substance C14 possessed. He simply wanted it for himself, he was obsessed with never dying and knew that Substance C14 was the only way he could live forever. Since it was raining, Dr. Walter knew that that Dr. Winthrop would be staying at home. He drove over to the lab went inside. He had to change the chemical formula of Substance C14 so instead of only allowing 24 hours of life, it would allow for an unlimited amount of hours of life. This was no easy process, Substance C14 was an incredibly complex compound. Luckily for Dr. Walter, he knew the password to Dr. Winthrop’s computer, and just searched through the files to find out how he could change the substance. It turns out it was actually really simple, he just had to add an enzyme that Dr. Winthrop left laying around. He added the enzyme and put Substance C14 back, he had to either wait for Dr. Winthrop to duplicate the substance, or wait for some type of emergency so that he could steal some of it without him noticing. He knew how to make the Substance, but it was a very costly thing to do and he could not get money, and asking for funding from the government would be too suspicious. Scotty was sleeping, when suddenly a loud clap of thunder woke him up. He climbed out of bed and attempted to turn on the lights, but the power seemed to have gone out. He grabbed a flashlight and headed downstairs to the kitchen, only to find his father passed out on the floor. He decided fretting around in the darkness was pointless so he went back upstairs and fell asleep. Scotty was awakened by a bright light shining. The power came back on and he had left the light switch in his room on. He looked at his clock, it was 7:30 in the morning. Scotty leaped out of bed. He had 30 minutes to get to school! He rushed downstairs and ate breakfast, he had no time to take a morning shower. He inhaled a bowl of cereal and dashed upstairs to find something to wear. He got dressed and went to find his dad. He had apparently gone to work without dropping him off at school. He’d have to run to school today. When he got out the door, he was instantly furious with his father. The streets were flooded with water. People’s yards were flooded and there seemed to be at least an inch of water everywhere. He couldn’t find a single dry spot to walk on. He sighed and started the run to school, it was only about half a mile, but when he finally got there his shoes were completely soaked with water and his blue jeans were wet from the knees down. First period was fun, it was gym. Scotty was good at basketball and that’s all his gym teacher ever had them do. His second period science teacher, Mrs. Pelonzonni, was freaking out about the heavy rain storm saying that there’s a chance for mud slides. Nobody in the class took her seriously, she worried about everything imaginable. Third and fourth period were boring, and then came lunch. Scotty walked into the lunch room and immediately saw his friends. There’s Zach Miccorny, a tall boy with brown hair and green eyes. He has been friends with Zach for years. They both run track and field, and they’re both middle distance runners. One of the main differences between Zach and Scotty was that Zach was intelligent. The problem with Zach’s intelligence was that it was wasted potential due to the fact that he was so lazy about his school work. Sitting next to Zach was Jacob Osborne. Jacob was an odd fellow. He was a nice guy, but at the same time a complete jerk. He was basically bi-polar. He was also a narcissist, he was completely in love with himself, and he was cocky. The President could tell him he’s a degenerate bum and this guy would smile and walk off. Sitting across the table were the three girls, Innana Denali, Kassidy Travis, and Bre Tweeneen. Bre is the youngest in the group. She was turning 13 in 2 months. She had long brown hair, and she had a dark tan. She had a tendency to shout all the time, which made her a funny person to be around. This girl also had a very mixed personality. One moment she would be happy, the next minute she would be insane and start hitting random people that she knew. Being around her was like being around a puffer fish. Do one thing that it doesn’t like and it’ll puff up. Innana is the thinker of the group. She was intelligent and interested in singing and theatre. She had dyed red hair and lots of freckles on her face. She would, almost daily, correct somebody’s English if they said something incorrectly. She also loved little kids, and she is good at making random stuff up for stories and English papers. Kassidy is the peace maker of the group. She has dirty blonde hair and is somewhat tanned. She generally would stay quiet, but if anybody started arguing she would almost immediately break it up. Kassidy also ran track and field, also running middle distance. Scotty, Zach, and Kassidy originally sat together at lunch as a trio, and Bre, Jacob, and Innana eventually joined in. Scotty sat in between Zach and Jacob. He didn’t have a lunch today because he was in a rush to get out of the door, so he just got what he could from people at his lunch table. During lunch he saw Skyler, and stuck his tongue out at him. He looked like he was about to come over and say something, but instead walked off. “Hey guys what’s up?” Scotty said “Eating my lunch like a pro!” The whole table laughed, that was the exact response they expected from Jacob.Innana had lived in northern California right by the coast, and it rained a whole bunch where she lived. “You know, what Mrs. Pelonzonni said today could actually be true, it’s been raining quite a bit lately. Where I used to live mudslides happened about 3 times a year, it was never anything catastrophic though.” “Man, no mudslide going to do nothing to me!” “You mean no mudslide is going to do anything to me?”Bre started laughing hysterically; she always laughed when Innana corrected Jacob’s English. “Shut up Bre!” “I will punch you if you say that again Zach!” “Man, nobody punching the Jacob, I’m a tank!”Bre got out of her seat, “You wanna say that again Jacob? I’ll punch your face!” “Shut up you fools!”Bre sat down. Kassidy had a way of making Bre be quiet, but she also was a joy kill, Scotty found it hilarious when people acted stupid. After lunch, Scotty said bye to his friends and went on his way to fifth period. With 5 minutes left in class, he heard the sound of thunder. It was about to rain again. He sighed. The bad weather and the power outages were beginning to annoy him. By sixth period the lights began blinking, but there was no power outage; and by seventh period it had began pouring again. Scotty said to himself that he wasn’t going to run home in the rain, so he called his father to pick him up. When he got home he began watching TV. Scotty was about to drift to sleep when suddenly he heard beeping. The National Weather Service interrupted the TV show that was on. They warned that there was a chance of a mudslide and that people in Valencia were advised to evacuate! Dr. Winthrop was awakened by loud banging coming from inside of his house. Somebody was inside. He leaped out of his bed and jammed his room door shut, the lock hadn’t worked on it for years. The intruder was making a great deal of noise. It sounded like the man said something, but it was drowned out by the sound of thunder. He moved silently in the darkness of his room towards his closet, looking for a weapon to defend himself with. Whoever the intruder was had began banging on his room door. He was trying to break it open. Whoever broke into his house really wanted in his room. He fingered around in the darkness a bit more and found a golf club. It would do. Suddenly, the door swung open! He got up and charged at whoever the intruder was, but suddenly a bright light filled his eyes and he tripped over his bed post, sprawling down onto the floor. “Dr. Winthrop! What are you doing?” Dr. Winthrop was shocked. The man talking to him was Dr. Walter! He got up, slightly embarrassed, and began chuckling. “I thought you were a burglar Jim… next time ring the door bell!” Dr. Walter simply laughed for a short moment before straightening up. “We have to go. The constant rain has caused the National Weather Service to release mud slide warnings. We need to get Substance C14 to a safer place” They hopped into his car and Dr. Winthrop floored it. He could not lose Substance C14. As they approached his lab, he could see that a mudslide was eminent. There were giant streams of water heading down the mountains and hills, and giant pools of mud were forming. Dr. Walter was extremely pleased. Just yesterday he had changed the chemical formula of Substance C14, and today he had an excuse to move it! Once it was moved he could take whatever he wanted easily and blame Dr. Winthrop if something went missing. He felt like the luckiest man alive. They got to the lab, and rushed inside. Dr. Walter began collecting scraps of paper that were relevant to Substance C14, and Dr. Winthrop was opening the safe that Substance C14 was inside of. “Hurry up! We don’t have much time!” Dr. Walter exclaimed. Dr. Winthrop finally opened the safe and got Substance C14. They began sprinting to the car. They had to get out of here now. They climbed into the car and he put Substance C14 in the back seat. Then, he suddenly realized. He had forgotten the fail safe! He jumped out of the car and back into his lab. Dr. Walter chased after him. They got back inside and Dr. Winthrop began looking for the fail safe. He had no clue where he had hidden it. “Help me find it!” He said. Dr. Walter smacked himself in the face and began searching. Dr. Walter didn’t actually want the fail safe to be found, it would be the only thing capable of killing him once he stole the some of the substance. Dr. Winthrop looked out the window, mud was beginning to move. There weren’t giant rivers of mud yet, but he knew that they would come soon, very soon. He opened a cabinet, and found the fail safe behind a container of litmus paper. He really hated himself for hiding his compounds in stupid places. He put the fail safe in his pocket and they got up and raced to the door. They opened it, only to be greeted by 15 inches of mud racing towards them! Dr. Winthrop slammed the door shut; they’d have to wait for the mud to stop. Substance C14 was in the car. The only thing he could do was watch out the window as thousands of pounds of mud and debris slid over and around his car. He began to notice that rocks were being carried in the mud, and that the rocks being carried in the mud were slowly becoming larger. He headed to the back of the lab; Dr. Walter was sound asleep in a chair. He decided he’d take a nap too; it was pointless to even attempt to leave the lab. Scotty looked out the window, mud was beginning to slowly flow down the mountaintops. “Dad we need to leave there’s going to be a mudslide!” There was no response. He went upstairs and found his dad, passed out before five. He was stuck here now; there was no way he could get a ride ten minutes before a mud slide. He went upstairs and sat on his bed, praying that the mudslide wouldn’t hit his house or any of his friends. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there praying, but eventually sleep overcame him and he dozed off. Dr. Winthrop was awakened by a strange sound. It sounded like hail. He looked around the lab, Dr. Walter was still asleep. He got up, and suddenly the entire building shook! His lab was collapsing! He ran towards the door, swimming in mud was much better than being in a collapsing building. He ran out the door and dove into the mud. He began drifting away. It took Dr. Winthrop all but 5 seconds to realize, he had forgotten about Dr. Walter! He attempted to swim against the mud current, but it was no use. Just as he was about to drift out of sight of the lab, he saw the building collapse. He drifted for about 5 minutes, when he then saw a large tree branch and grabbed hold of it. He was safe from the mud now, but he was also stuck on top of a tree branch with nowhere to go. He began looking around, if he had some place he could jump to and escape the mud he would be safe. He leaned over, and saw a vial of blue liquid fall. It was Substance C14’s fail safe! He dove into the mud river; he didn’t care what happened now. Substance C14 was still inside of his car, but without the fail safe he would never be able to sell it. He dove into the mud river. Unfortunately for him, diving into any shallow body of water is risky, and he hit his head on something hard and was knocked out. Scotty woke up the next day, and looked outside of his window. Streets were covered with mud. He went outside and walked a few blocks, and saw that quite a few houses that were in the path of the mud slide were completely destroyed. There were ambulances and Red Cross people everywhere, and the sound of sirens seemed to be never ending. There were random cars strewn across the street, and hardly any of them were drivable. Almost half of them were upside down. Scotty began looking inside of the cars. He didn’t know why, but looking in cars that were upside down was oddly fun for him. Almost every car was absolutely filthy. As he was searching through cars, he found a small purple vial. He thought it looked cool, so he took it out of the car. The only thing that the vial had written on it was C14. He held the vial in his hand because it looked cool and continued exploring. He came across a dog, who barked non-stop at him. He felt like the dog was telling him something, so he followed it. The dog led him to a big tree, and there was an unconscious man in a white lab coat under it! Scotty dropped the vial of purple liquid and tried waking up the man. He screamed in his ear, he kicked him, but nothing seemed to work. Scotty began to get worried, and began yelling for help. He heard a siren, so he got up and began running. “Help me! Help me!” He waved his arms and ran towards the direction of the siren. The ambulance driver saw him, and the driver parked his car. He got out and said, “What’s the problem?” Scotty replied, “I found a man who’s unconscious! He’s over there!” He pointed in the direction of the dog, and the driver and an EMT ran to him. The EMT also failed to wake up the man, so they loaded him up in the ambulance and took him to a hospital. Scotty was now wondering where the vial of purple liquid he had found went, so he began searching the area around the tree that he found the unconscious man at. For some odd reason he couldn’t find it anywhere, so he gave up. Scotty began walking home, when he saw Zach also wondering the streets with his 7 year old brother, Greg. Greg was just walking around with his older brother and munching on some gold fish out of a plastic bowl. Greg seemed to have the most amazing time eating goldfish; he smiled at every one of them before he ate them, probably because they always smiled back. “This sucks...” Zach said, “My house wasn’t near the mud slide but entire neighborhoods are destroyed now. Is your house alright Scotty?” Scotty smiled, “Yes my house was pretty much untouched, my yard is flooded but that doesn’t really matter, just about every person’s yard in my neighborhood is flooded from all the rain.” Zach said, “That’s awesome man! My neighbor’s basement is flooded, but my house is fine. It’s depressing to think about how many houses were destroyed.” “Do you know how many inches of rain there has been?” Scotty asked. “Almost 10 inches.” Zach said. Scotty simply shrugged and stared at the sky. 2 days ago it was bright and sunny outside, and now entire neighborhoods were washed away by mud. He talked with Zach a while longer, and then Zach got a call from his mom, so he had to go home. Zach called for Greg, who came running up to him. Scotty looked in his hands. He had his bowl of goldfish, and the purple vial that he had found earlier! Scotty tried snatching it out of Greg’s hands, but instead Greg dropped the vial and his goldfish. The vial broke open and fell on the goldfish. Scotty just shrugged and started walking home, he could just blame the mudslide for any mess that was outside. Zach began walking home, but Greg looked down at the goldfish, when he saw that they were moving. “Zach! Come here! The goldfish are moving!” Zach laughed, “Stop being so stupid Greg, we gotta go home.” “No Zach, I’m not joking! The goldfish are moving!” Zach just kept walking; he didn’t want to bother with such stupidity. Greg scooped all the goldfish home and started chasing Zach home, careful not to let him see his fishies. When he got home, he climbed up into his attic. He found a fishbowl and filled it with some water and put the gold fish into it. He brought it up to his room, locked the door, and then stared at his new fish. He had always wanted a fish, and now he had ten! Greg had to go to the bathroom, so he went. He was slightly annoyed by the fact that the mudslide had overflowed the sewers, toilets would flush but they wouldn’t actually drain properly, so a lot of mess was flooding into the streets outside of his house. He didn’t really mind that though, it wasn’t his street to watch over. He was only gone for three minutes, but when he got back he swore there were more gold fish! He counted them once, and then he counted them again. There was no denying it. There were more goldfish now. He watched them for a few minutes, he’d notice little lines appear in them, but he never saw more actually appear. They just showed up. He had to have watched this happen for about 30 minutes, when he realized that he had a really big problem. The goldfish were almost overflowing out of the bowl. He panicked, and rushed to the toilet and flushed them. When Scotty got home he hopped on the couch and turned on the news. The top story was about the mudslide. The news reporter said that it had destroyed over 100 houses and knocked out power in a good section of Valencia. He was glad his power wasn’t out; he’d go insane with no electricity right now. The news reporter said something about a ‘magic potion’ that could give any object life, but Scotty figured it was some stupid report and turned off the television. It was only six, but he decided he’ll go to bed. John Long was worried. He was an employee of the FBI, and his task had been to watch a man by the name of Dr. Winthrop. Dr. Winthrop had developed a substance that could give life to inanimate objects, and his job was to watch over Dr. Winthrop and the Substance to insure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. If a terrorist or an enemy of the state got such a substance there would be a slew of trouble. He was also in charge of watching Dr. Winthrop’s associate, Dr. Walter. Up until today his task had been easy, the pair lived relatively close to each other and both of them pretty much spent all of their time at Dr. Winthrop’s lab. Unfortunately for him, and the doctors, a mudslide has caused havoc in all of their lives. John’s first priority when the mud slide happened was to locate Dr. Winthrop and Dr. Walter, and then to locate Substance C14 and its fail safe substance. John was in bad luck, he couldn’t locate either of the doctors and he had no way to truly know where Substance C14 and its fail safe were. He would have to wait for one of the doctors to come back on the radar for him to find out. John had been calling each local hospital whenever he felt it was necessary to do so, hoping one of them would show up. He assumed that if Dr. Winthrop or Dr. Walter were hurt that they would go to a hospital. John had also been visiting Dr. Winthrop’s house. He always knew when he was at home because Dr. Winthrop always kept his living room lights on. Dr. Walter wasn’t at his house either. John was beginning to get frustrated. His job for the past year had been to watch two scientists mess around with a small vial of purple liquid, and now he had to play hide and seek in a flooded city covered with mud. He decided he’d take a short drive to the doctors lab, if neither of them were at home then surely they were at their lab. It was about a 20 minute drive to the doctor’s lab. On the way there he actually got to survey the damage caused by the mud slide. Some places where there used to be nice houses were just completely wiped out and replaced with a pile of mud and debris. He continued driving, and when he got to the lab he stopped and stared, it had collapsed in the mud slide! He had to call his boss immediately. “Hello?” “Hello, boss, this is John… I have a little emergency I need help with.” “What’s the emergency John? I’m kind of busy and don’t need to dilly dally.” “The two men you assigned for me to watch are missing, and their lab collapsed due to a mud slide. I am also unable to locate Substance C14 or its fail safe because I cannot find the doctors.” “How did this happen John!?! Your orders were simple, watch these men from a distance!” “As I said boss, there was a massive mudslide, entire neighborhoods have been destroyed here.” He heard his boss sigh. “What will you need to find them?” “I need a team of men to help me clear the debris from the lab, both of the scientists could be trapped in here!” “Whatever you need John, we can’t lose track of those men. If that substance falls into the wrong hands we could be in a mountain of trouble.” “I need 10 men to clear the debris, and EMTs on stand-by, I don’t want to risk anything.” “It’ll happen. You’ll have everything you need within an hour. Don’t fail me John.”John sighed. He knew today was going to be a long day. Dr. Walter was still shaken up with what happened, but he was also very pleased. He was awoken from his nap and saw that the lab was collapsing. He managed to jump out of the lab window before the building collapsed, but he left his jacket inside. Dr. Winthrop was no-where to be found after the collapse, so he took a vial of Substance C14 and had it stashed away in the safe in his closet. He wanted to confirm Dr. Winthrop’s whereabouts before using it on himself. Scotty got up feeling extremely refreshed. He went into his dad’s room and woke him up; it was 9:30, so it was time for him to wake up anyway. He ate breakfast, put on some shorts, and headed out the door. He was heading to the park to play Frisbee with his friends. As he was walking there, riding his bike was almost impossible with all the water and mud, he noticed something peculiar. There were random goldfish everywhere. It was as if somebody was driving around throwing them on the ground. They seemed to be concentrated around all the sewage drains He got to the park and he was somewhat pleased. The park seemed to be the only place not affected by the mud slide. There were 14 people there, the perfect number for ultimate Frisbee, so they began. Scotty was pretty good at Frisbee. The fact that he was a good runner only made him better. Zach was also on his team, so his team had an advantage. Jacob was on the other team, they had some good players but none of them compared to Scotty and Zach being together. Of course, regardless of the fact that his team was winning, Jacob could be heard talking trash. Hearing him talk trash was one of the greatest joys for everybody playing Frisbee. For the first two games, Scotty’s team had flawless victories. But, when the third game began Zach had to go so the teams were made even. The score was 6-6, and Jacob’s team had the Frisbee. One more point and they’d win. Jacob threw the Frisbee from about half field. Scotty went sprinting after it full speed, the guy Jacob threw it to was wide open. He sprinted as fast as he could, but Scotty gained too much momentum and slammed into him full force instead of blocking him. This made Jacob furious. “Why’d you truck him dude? We were about to win” “It was an accident, you can have the point if you want it, he was wide open.” “Have the point? You ruin my beautiful throw and just want to give me a point?”Jacob picked up another random goldfish on the ground. “That’s like me picking up this muddy goldfish and saying you can have it!”Then, he screamed. The goldfish jumped out of his hand, it was moving! Everybody ran up to it and began watching it. The goldfish was trying to swim through the grass. It also didn’t look like a little cheddar cheese snack anymore, it looked like it had scales. It looked like an actual fish, but it could breathe above water. Its only difficulty was that it couldn’t swim fast. Jacob picked it up and put it in a water puddle. Instantly it began swimming in circles, as if it were a fish in a fish tank. They also observed something new; as the fish swam it was growing bigger at an incredible rate. It was as if putting it in water made it grow. “Why is it growing in water?” “I don’t know Jacob, how often do you see a snack swimming in circles in a puddle?”Everybody snickered at that comment and continued watching it. Suddenly, it stopped moving, it looked like a line had been drawn down the middle of it. “What do you think it’s doing Scot?” “I don’t really know, it’s bad that Zach left, he was the smart one here.” “Well call him or something! Make him come back!”Scotty was kind of mad with himself now. “I don’t have my phone… I left it at home because I thought it would be muddy here.” The line in the goldfish slowly got deeper; any second now it would cut itself in half. Scotty was extremely curious now. <br />“Do you think it’s killing itself?” “Nah, this goldfish is a pro and a true pro doesn’t kill himself.” Suddenly, there was a collection of gasps, and the goldfish split in half! It didn’t die though, there were now two goldfish! The goldfish had somehow split itself into two halves and replicated itself! Jacob began to talk to himself. “These goldfish are awesome! They’re almost as awesome as me! That goldfish is a boss! I’m a boss! This is awesome!” While Jacob was distracted in a self-loving monologue, Scotty decided it was time to head home and began walking back. He hadn’t gone one block when he realized that this goldfish thing wasn’t just happening at the park. In every direction there was small packs of people watching these goldfish squirm around in the water and mud, he could hear the bewildered questions people asked out loud and the collective gasps when the goldfish split in half. As he continued walking, Scotty began to realize that soon these goldfish would become a problem. They were everywhere. The few random goldfish he saw when he was walking to the park were now in groups of five and six. The recent rain and the mud from the mud slide were perfect places for the goldfish, they could swim and grow. When Scotty got home he immediately called Zach. Zach answered almost instantly, and he was angry. “What do you want?” “Whoa Zach, calm down, what’s the problem?” “I keep getting phone calls every 2 minutes with people telling me there’s moving goldfish! Greg said yesterday that the goldfish he dropped were moving, and I know that he’s trying to play a joke on me by getting all of my friends to prank call me and talk about moving goldfish!” “Are you messing with me Zach? That was the exact reason I called you, Jacob picked up a goldfish at the park and it jumped out of his hand and swam away.” He heard a load groan emit from Zach. “You’re kidding… right? There really can’t be live goldfish swimming around. Food can’t come to life Scot” “I’m not kidding Zach. Just go outside and you’ll notice the groups of people standing around them. They’re everywhere.” “That still doesn’t make sense Scot, my brother barely had a bowl full of gold fish, and I’m hearing stories from all around town.” “They split in half Zach, I don’t know how or why, but they grow really big and then they split in half and there’s two of them!” “You sure are creative Scotty! How long did it take you to think that one up man? “I’m not lying Zach. There are goldfish swimming around splitting themselves in half.” Zach didn’t reply; he had hung up on him. Scotty called Bre next; he wanted to see if she had heard anything about the goldfish yet. When he called her, she screamed “There’s moving goldfish!” and hung up on him before he could even say hi. Scotty laughed and called Innana next, he was curious about how the goldfish split in half, and he was hoping Innana knew how. “Hey Innana!” “Hey Scotty!” “Have to heard about or seen the goldfish that have been coming to life across town?” “Yes I have, and I don’t really understand how they are. They’re snacks for crying out loud! They can’t come to life!” “Haha, Zach pretty much said the same exact thing a while ago. “Great minds think alike I guess.” “I guess so… have you seen how the goldfish multiply? A giant line appears in the middle of it and then it slowly sinks in until the goldfish splits in half, and then there’s two of them!” “Ah yes I have, that’s called binary fission. It’s how cells divide.” “But aren’t cells really tiny? Aren’t they like a millionth of the width of a hair?” “Yes Scotty, cells are extremely small, ten million cells could probably fit inside of a gold fish, heck, even more probably could!” “So if cells are tiny then how are goldfish doing it? They’re obviously huge compared to the size of a cell!” “I honestly don’t know… I got to go, my mom is calling me.” “Alright Innana, see ya.”(SPOOKY HELL DREAM WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWhasa deega eibouwaiWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW) John watched as the trucks drove up. He always liked the feeling of power being in the FBI. He didn’t even know any of the people who were going to help him clean up debris, yet he had full control over them. Other people had control over him too, but he tried to ignore that small fact, it helped his ego. They began clearing debris, it was a dirty process. Just about everything was covered with dried up mud and water. They would clear a pile of debris and then have another group of men load them up into the trucks and drive them to a nearby dump. There was plenty of work to do, it was a pretty well-sized lab, and the entire thing had collapsed in the mud slide. John really hoped the doctors weren’t in there. “Have you guys found anything of interest yet?” “Nope. Just a lot of wood, and shingles from the roof.” “And mud!” “Haha, very funny. Keep looking! If you find anything in a glass container or a man just shout!” They cleared more debris for a bit, when they came across a man’s jacket. They began working faster then. It had been two days since the mudslide had actually happened and they knew that every second counts in situations like this. John began to really worry now; if the scientists were dead he’d have a lot of searching to do if he wanted to find Substance C14 and its fail safe. He really hated the doctors for not making it so public. Scotty went back outside, he wanted to watch the goldfish do some more things. He walked to a group of people watching goldfish nearby, and saw his dad among them. His dad had a bottle of red wine with him, and he was pouring it on the goldfish! “Dad! Why are you pouring wine on the goldfish!?” “Well son, I originally did it for fun, but it turns out that it kills them!” “Couldn’t you just step on them if you wanted to kill them?” “Nope, try it, they’re like cockroaches on steroids. They can survive everything including shoes.” He smashed the goldfish under his shoe. His dad had got to be kidding, nothing that tiny could survive getting stepped on by a shoe! He moved his shoe, and the goldfish was smashed flat. “Hah! They can be smashed dad! I guess you just didn’t step on them hard enough.” “Wait a minute son, just watch.” He looked down and stared at the goldfish. He didn’t see anything at first, but when he put his face right near it he could see that the goldfish was slowly puffing back up by itself! They could be smashed but they would just simply grow back! He looked up at his dad, he was just pouring wine on them whenever they split in half. Scotty took the bottle out of his hands and just poured it everywhere, killing every gold fish. “Scotty why’d you do that?” “Well first of all you don’t need all of that wine,” “And why don’t I need it?” “Because you’re an alcoholic dad, and second of all these gold fish are going to become a problem.” “How are they going to become a problem?” “Dad, this morning I hardly saw 20 gold fish, and now I see them everywhere! Imagine what it’ll be like a day from now, or even a week from now!” “I see your point Scotty, but how is anybody going to be able to get rid of all of them? Valencia was just devastated by a mudslide and then we have magic living goldfish to worry about also? Our city is already under budgeted, how is the government supposed to clean up goldfish that multiply so fast without spending all of our tax money? It’d also be incredibly difficult to collect enough alcohol and get enough people to get rid of all of them.” That was a lot for Scotty to process. “I really hate that you’re a lawyer Dad…” “I really hate when you’re right about a problem, I hate it even more when you’re right about two.” Scotty was confused about what his dad said, the only thing that he had mentioned was that the gold fish were becoming a problem. John’s crew was almost down digging through the debris. They had found a jacket, and they had confirmed it was Dr. Walter’s because a tag with his name was on it, but they could not find Dr. Walter. He was about to give up hope of finding the doctors, when suddenly he heard somebody shout. “John, come here! I found something!”John came, frantic to see what had been found. “What’d you find?”The man got up and held out his hand. “What are you doing?” John asked, irritated that this man had his arm held out to him and not talking. The man beckoned for him to look down. John was speechless. “It’s a goldfish, sir.” “I… I see that… but how is it moving? It’s a cracker…” “I don’t know sir, you’re the boss. What should I do with it?” “Do you have any jars?” “Yes I do, sir, let me find one, they’re in my truck.”They walked over to the worker’s truck and after a bit of searching he finally found a jar.” “Alright, put the goldfish in the jar and hand it to me. You’ve done a good job today, you can go home early.” “Really? Thank you sir!”The man hopped into his truck and drove away as fast as he could, apparently he thought John would change his mind. While John was admiring the live goldfish, the rest of the crew had finished digging up the debris. There was no doctor to be found, or Substance C14. John connected the dots relatively fast, it wasn’t hard if you knew about the substance. The substance had somehow made contact with goldfish and brought it to life. John prayed that there weren’t many. He had to call his boss. “Hello boss, we’ve finished clearing the debris from the lab.” “Did you find the doctors?” “No sir, we did find Dr. Walter’s jacket though, which means he may have been there a few hours before the mud slide.” “Did you find the substance?” “We did not find the substance either sir, but we may have bigger pr-” “So I sent you 20 men to help you and you’re coming back to me with nothing?!? Valencia gets hit by a massive mud slide and you’re wasting my time and the time of those men, they could have been helping clean up other areas that actually needed it!” “Sir, the Substance doesn’t matter anymore!” “Are you insane? That Substance will change life as we know it.” “It already has! As we were clearing debris one of the workers came across a goldfish. I’m not talking about the actual fish, I’m talking about the cracker. It was alive.” “That isn’t possible. The Substance only works on things that were once living.” “That’s what I thought sir, but I’m not kidding. I have one in a jar and I’m going to drive over to headquarters and give it to you tomorrow.” “I need it today John. This is serious. You found one goldfish but who knows how many more are out there.” “Alright sir, I’m heading there now.”He sent all the workers home and threw the jar into the back of his car. It was already late and his boss was making him take the two hour drive to headquarters. He kept an eye out for any other strange things on the way there, like living army soldiers, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He began to get hungry, and only had a half hour to go, so he decided to stop at a fast food restaurant. He got a burger and sat down, trying not to think about little fish snacks swimming through the ocean. He couldn’t. Every person who walked in seemed to be talking about goldfish. John had no idea if he was imagining it or if everybody was actually talking about goldfish. He finished his burger, and just as he was about to go out the door, a man stopped him. “Hey, have you heard about the wacky stuff that’s been happening lately?”John didn’t really want to talk to this man, but his question intrigued him. “No I haven’t, care to tell me what?” “Dude! There’s freaking little gold fish snacks swimming around! They’re everywhere! I don’t know how it even happened, I think the government made like, little robot gold fish, and they’re watching us man!” John laughed, “I highly doubt that. The government isn’t as crazy as you may think it is.” “No dude, they’re watching us. They’re everywhere. I bet somebody in this restaurant works for like, the CIA or the FBI or something.” “Maybe, look I gotta go.” “Alright bro, peace!”John was freaked out now. Apparently everybody was talking about goldfish. He got into his car and started speeding, he had to get to headquarters fast, he wanted to know who else had noticed the goldfish. It was supposed to be a thirty minute drive, but John managed to do it in twenty. He parked his car and reached into the back of his car to get the jar with the gold fish in it out. He didn’t believe what he saw. The jar now had hundreds of gold fish in it. The one gold fish he had placed in there had somehow turned into a school of goldfish. He got out of his car and walked into headquarters with the jar in his hand. He took 3 steps into the door when people started laughing at him. “Hey kid! Those are some nice goldfish you got there!” “This place gets weirder and weirder every day… now we got grown men bringing jars full of goldfish to work.”John simply smiled and took the elevator to the top floor, where his boss was. He knocked on the door. “Come in!” John walked in and placed the jar on his desk. His boss had an incredulous look on his face. “You said there was only one gold fish.” “I did. There was. I’m not even sure what is happening anymore. I went to a restaurant on the way here, and it seemed everybody was talking about gold fish.” “When did you find the first gold fish?” “About three hours ago. We found no other gold fish at the collapsed lab. I was hoping it was the only one.” “Well apparently not, John. We’ll have to deal with this mess tomorrow. For now, I’m going to send these gold fish to our lab. Hopefully they can find an easy way to kill ‘em.” “Okay sir.” “I’ll call you with your orders tomorrow morning.”Scotty woke up depressed. He had school today. He got up, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, and got dressed. His dad wasn’t home again, so he had to walk to school. He had plenty of time to get to school, so he didn’t have to run today. He packed his bag and walked out the front door. Two things he saw shocked him. The first was that the goldfish now seemed to have taken over. They were clumped together at all the low-lying areas, he assumed they needed at least a little bit of water to survive. The clumps of goldfish weren’t tiny, however. There were goldfish stacked into groups as big as cars! He saw quite a few kids messing with the giant clumps, they seemed to be harmless, but extremely invasive. The goldfish reminded him of Kudzu, it starts out as a nuisance, just a tiny vine, but in a few weeks it’s choking out the tree it’s attached to. He didn’t know if he should feel worried, or to laugh at what was happening. Some kids weren’t worrying at all. There were a few brave boys driving their bicycles into them. They’d vanish for a few seconds in the giant clump, and then come out with gold fish stuck in their hair. Teenagers with their big trucks were also driving straight through every clump of gold fish they saw, it was like hitting a block of ice with a baseball bat. The second thing that shocked him was his own front yard. There were broken beer bottles everywhere. His dad did some stupid things when he was drinking, but never like this. It looked like he broke every bottle of alcohol he owned. It was as if he was trying to tell somebody that he had alcohol, and now he didn’t. Scotty began walking, but by the time he reached the end of the block his curiosity got the best of him. He walked over to a clump of goldfish and poked it. It was kind of squishy, but the gold fish didn’t feel wet. It was kind of like weird jello. He punched the clump just for fun, a piece of the clump flew off of it, and into the road. It was just about the size of a soccer ball, and it was round, so, he kicked it. He watched as it soared through the air, Scotty knew he was good at kicking stuff, but this thing just seemed to keep going. It was in the air for about five seconds, until it landed in a drainage ditch. He tried kicking a few more clumps of goldfish into that drainage ditch, but none of them made it, or went near as far as his first kick. He eventually got bored, and checked the time. He had 5 minutes to get to school! He ran, but was still late. The school doors are locked when school begins, so he had to go through the visitor’s entrance and get a tardy. He walked into the main office, and saw that there were an odd amount of people in there. He saw Bre in there and walked up to her. “Why are there so many people in here?” “The bus hit a mound of gold fish blocking the road and crashed! We all had to walk to school!” “Dang! Was anybody hurt?” “A few cuts and bruises, the driver and one other person had to go away in an ambulance, but I heard it was just for like cuts or something not really serious.” “Dang… that’s going to make a lot of parents mad. Do you think I could say the bus is the reason I’m late and get into class without taking a tardy?” “Yeah sure it’s worth a shot.” “Alright, see ya Bre!”He was glad that he didn’t have to get a tardy. He slipped into his gym class, his coach was always watching over who was late or not, but Scotty simply said “bus” and he let him go. The first person he saw in there was Zach. He seemed sad, but when he saw Scotty he smiled and acted like everything was okay. Scotty didn’t like it when people hid stuff, so he began questioning him. “What’s wrong Zach?” “What’s wrong? Nothing’s wrong.” “I know when something’s bothering you, Zach.” “It’s not really anything you should worry about Scot.” “Why not?” “I don’t know. I just don’t feel like talking.” “Fine.”They left the locker room. Scotty was kind of angry that Zach wouldn’t talk to him, but he figured that Zach would later. They sat down and the class began doing stretches. When they finished, their gym coach told them to circle up. “Alright class, today we’re going to play wiffle ball, inside.” The class gave an audible groan. “We were going to play baseball outside, but the heavy rain coupled with the mud slide made the conditions too bad for us to play. That and the gold fish problem we seem to be having, the school administration thinks it’s unsafe to be outside with those things swimming around.” Everybody laughed, except Zach, the gold fish were about as dangerous as a caterpillar. Scotty confronted him again. “Zach, you’re acting really weird today, not just weird, but really, really, really, weird.” “Look Scotty, I already told you that I don’t want to talk about it. Just leave me alone for today.”Scotty decided he would, and they got to playing wiffle ball. The entire class really did not like the game. Scotty despised it. He found no joy hitting a giant hollow ball with a baseball bat. Actually playing baseball was much more entertaining. Scotty wasn’t even good at baseball, but he loved the sound of the bat making connection with the ball. They played for a while, and eventually everybody got bored. Their coach so this and just made them go back to the locker room and change back into their normal clothes. Scotty was going to question Zach again, but he dressed as fast as he could and had left. Second period for Scotty consisted of four words from Mrs. Pelonzonni, “I told you so!” Scotty thought he was going to go insane before he got out of there, but he was alright. Third and fourth period were the same boring thing, and then lunch came. Scotty got his lunch. Today it was pizza and, ironically, gold fish with a fruit cup. Scotty looked around the lunch room and noticed that nobody was eating their gold fish. He laughed at sat down at his table. Scotty was hardly in the seat with Zach took his goldfish and threw them into the trash can. “Why’d you do that Zach?”Zach simply got up and left the lunch room. Kassidy said, “Are you two fighting?” “No we aren’t, he’s just been acting really freaky today. “How so?” “He wouldn’t talk to me in gym and every time somebody mentions gold fish he gets mad!” “Maybe somebody he knew got hurt on that bus that crashed and he feels bad.” Bre piped in, “Nope! Only two people had to go away and they weren’t really hurt bad!” “Well okay, maybe it’s just his day to act stupid, give him some space Scotty.” “Alright… it is kind of hard to when he’s being so dramatic though.”Jacob came in the lunch room and sat down. “You people hear Mrs. Pelonzonni today? She was off the wall! The only thing she pretty much said was I told you so!”Scotty laughed, apparently she was acting like this with all of her classes. “Yes I had her second period, I don’t even think she attempted to teach us today.” “Man! If I said there would be a mud slide and I was right I’d just be quiet, nobody likes a bragger!”Bre whispered, “Yeah because you’re quiet!”The entire table laughed, Jacob hadn’t heard what she said, and they knew he had no idea why they were laughing. He just smiled awkwardly like he knew what was going on.(WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW SCARY HELL DREAM. HASA DIGA EEBOUWAI WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW[I could use something to put here, give me some ideas. Some test.]WWW) John woke up and got some breakfast. He looked out the window of his apartment and saw that the gold fish were in clumps on the streets. He saw kids playing with them, and wondered if these goldfish were just a nuisance or an actual problem. His phone began ringing, it was the demonic ringtone that he had set aside especially for his boss. “Hello John.” “Hi Boss, what am I going to do today?” “Overnight my scientists experimented with the gold fish, the only way they could think of to kill them is to deprive them of water. They slowly shrivel up and die without it.” “That’s great to know, but there’s water everywhere boss. There’s no way I can go around to every place with water in it and scoop up the goldfish just to take them to a dry place, and there’s been a lot of rain lately, I doubt there even is a moderately dry place how it is.” “I know John. I need something to happen though, just get a half-hearted effort going to exterminate them. If we got the press thinking we’re just letting these things take over an entire city we could all lose our jobs.” “So what do you want me to do? Just round up a bunch of men and have them move the gold fish somewhere dry?” “Pretty much, I recommend just lining them up on a dry road, the asphalt will get really hot from the sun and kill em faster.”John hung up and banged his head on the wall. He was expected to clean up after gold fish that he now predicted numbered in the tens of thousands. He sighed and called the fire department. He’d need a lot of resources to clean up this mess. If only he knew where the fail safe to substance C14 was, he could just get it duplicated and use it as an aerosol. The fire department wasn’t picking up, so he decided to call the police department. They were happy that a clean-up effort was finally being established, they had been flooded with 9-1-1 calls related to gold fish and it was a huge waste of man hours. He told them to spread the word and that at noon they would meet at the Valencia Park and organize into clean-up groups. Suddenly, John had an idea. He recalled the fire department, and this time they picked up. “Hello, who’s in charge of the Valencia fire department?” “Captain Antle.” “Alright, this is John Long with the FBI, may I speak with him please?” “Yes sir, let me get him. He’s working on the fire truck.”John the man walking, and waited. The man tried to give the phone to Captain Antle but he told him to wait a minute, and that minute turned in two minutes, which turned into five minutes. After ten minute he finally took the phone. “Sorry for keeping you waiting John, I was working on the truck, I make sure it’s in perfect running condition, I don’t want one problem to happen with the fire truck while my men are risking their lives in a fire.”John used to be a volunteer fireman, and knew that keeping the fire truck in good condition was essential for fight fighting. “I understand entirely Captain, I used to volunteer when I was a bit younger.” “You’re a good man John, now why did you need to speak with me so urgently?” “It’s about the goldfish that have been taking over Valencia, from what I’ve heard the only way to get rid of them is to dry them out. But, I was thinking, what if we had controlled fires and just threw the goldfish into them? Or perhaps got something like a torch and just shoved it into the clumps of goldfish piled up on the roads and cook them there?” “Wow John. That’s a great idea! We heard the same thing about drying them out but never thought of using fire, it is our enemy in a sense.” “Kind of an ironic plan, the fire department helping burn things.” “Yes it is, John. Thank you for calling us, I wouldn’t want random people making ‘controlled’ fires. That’s how half the fires we put out start.”John heard a loud ring in his ear. His phone was ringing. “I’m getting another call Captain, I’ll talk to you later. By the way, we’re organizing this at the Park.” “Alright John, bye.”He looked to see who was calling him, the number looked familiar, so he answered it. “Hello, is this John Long?” “Yes it is.” “Hello, this is the Valencia City Hospital, we received multiple calls from you asking for a ‘Dr. Winthrop’ and we’d like you to know that he’s been under our care for the past two days.”John was excited. Maybe this day would actually turn out good! Dr. Winthrop had been found! He was still kind of curious though, it took the hospital a long time to call him. “That’s great! But why didn’t you call me back sooner?” “We’ve been under a lot of pressure lately due to the mud slide, and we’ve been understaffed. Most of our nurses and doctors have been working the emergency room.” “So does that mean he hasn’t been in the emergency room? Is he okay? If he hasn’t been to the emergency room then why is he still in the hospital?” “He’s was declared comatose upon arriving at the hospital.” “Comatose as in…. he’s in a coma?” “Yes sir. He suffered a severe brain trauma which caused him to go into a coma. We believe it happened during the mud slide” “Alright… thank you…”He hung up the phone and sat down. He was shocked with how fast his job had gone downhill. One day he just sat around watching some scientist drive to work, and now he had to clean up after the creation the scientist made without his help.<br />