A Meeting of the Minds (Closed to Shadow)

A man walked into a room with decorum that let everyone that entered know the owner was of higher class then even the higher class. The man paid it no mind though as he had grown accustomed to it all some time previous to the day at hand. Without so much as batting an eye at the large aquarium at the back of the room, or the human skulls that decorated the bottom of it, he sat down at a chair in front of a large mahogany desk, placing his briefcase on it with ease. He also crossed his legs, getting as comfortable as possible in his suit, which he was required to wear for his job. “Sir, are you here?” He called into the darkness.

“Yes, I am here, Mister Price,” The large booming voice of a bipedal crocodile as he entered the room from his private dentist office. “I was having my teeth cleaned again. As you know I have some trouble adequately clean some of my marvelous teeth,” He continued as he gave his associate a coy smile. “Tell me, are you prepared for your first day as a business associate for a school for the truly gifted?” He phrased it as a question but it was not. It was a directive ‘Be ready or else’ and his directions came with a steep price if not carried out appropriately.

Johnny knew his answer, or rather his response, because it was truly his only option. “Yes sir, I’m scheduled to meet the boy today as a matter of fact,” He said as he sat up a little straighter. Johnny was used to the rhythm these meetings took. “Do you have any new orders or anything in particular for the meeting, sir?” He said the words with the utmost care especially the word ‘Sir’. Johnny had seen the price of calling his boss by anything slightly disrespectful, or even worse his nickname Gentleman Crocodile. The man had been killed on the spot with no questions asked. The crocodile-man shook his head from one side to the other and his will was under stood.

Sometime later that day, in front of the new school Johnny Price stood waiting on the young boy to show up. Looking at his watch, Johnny was beginning to get very annoyed. The little brat was already a couple hours late. “How can he be so late when we sent a limo to pick him up from the airport?” the villain said as he tapped his watch to be sure that it was still running properly. Pacing back and forth, he waited and waited for the child to arrive. He would wait, even if he had to wait all night.

A blond haired teenager sat in the back of a limo lazy sipping on a bottle of water,gazing out a window with unseeing eyes, his mind not registering what it was he was seeing. His thoughts were elsewhere, an abnormality for him to be focused solely on one subject. The adolescent was possessed of a genius level intellect, and usually allowed his thoughts to wander and multitasked on various subjects but he only had thoughts for one thing at the moment. A project he called Pelican.

Adam Greyrose had few concerns about his trip to Los Angeles at the moment. It seemed like a standard situation he had been thrust into on behalf of the university he attended on a full ride scholarship. He was afforded many liberties and paraded around like some prize winning horse at a state fair to earn the place more money or recognition. In all honesty Adam found it a fair trade since he was using the place more than they used him. He found it amusing that they thought of him as something special when at the best the place and it's administrators were rooks on his chess board of life.

In fact he was even milking them for this trip. He had been asked to go speak with a gentleman about setting up a sister school of sorts in California. Adam, having already been certified as an educational administrative, was working to help set up this new project. In all honesty he was already devising an idea to create his own facility for educating super powered youths and this would clearly be good practice, so he had wormed his way into going for the meeting, but along the way he had been distracted by the operations of an aircraft and his wish to craft an amphibious aircraft for his work as the superhero Plural.

And that was partially how he had held up his ride's schedule. He had stopped to look into the gift shop and find several books on aircrafts and had speedread them while standing there, studying the various airplane types and their designs from pictures, assessing their uses and capabilities to mold to his own designs. He had believed it to only be taking a few minutes but had let his thoughts stray as he went through book after book before heading back to look at the planes landing and taking off, letting his gaze fall on the military jets off in the distance kept at the airport. It had taken the chauffeur a full 40 minutes to usher the genius into the car. Adam had finally decided to take his leave in order to shut the insistent driver up.

Then of course they collided with LA traffic. Almost another problem until the 16 year old ordered the driver to take an alternative route that bypassed the potential troublesome back up of cars. The chauffeur was clearly surprised by the New Yorker's understanding of the LA motor ways. He shrugged off the compliment and requested to stop at a convenience store where he had retrieved his water and a small notebook for notes.

Finally after 2 hours, the limo pulled up in front of their destination and the chauffeur got out with a sheepish look on his face, attempting to get to the door and open it for Adam but only found himself to be too slow, as the teen popped open the door and stepped out into the waning sunlight waving the driver off laying a $300 tip on the roof for him.

"Thanks Ryan excellent driving. Sorry I was so much trouble." he said turning his attention to the sky, looking at the few clouds in the vibrantly colored sky as the sun began to set before looking down at the guy in a suit who was standing in wait of his arrival.

The boy stepped out of the limo, without letting the chauffer do it himself, and handed the driver a substantial tip. Johnny could barely keep himself from sneering but he managed not to do it while in plain view of the little brat. The man knew the kid’s type, he was a child that had been served everything on a silver platter, especially his intelligence, and Johnny could not stand it. If the time ever presented itself Johnny would not hesitate to use the boy in one of his experiments; he had been wondering about the upper limits of child resilience to extreme colds for some time now. Smiling as he pictured the boy freezing to death, Johnny passed it off as a smile to greet the boy.

“Hello and welcome to our new school,” His tone was monitored and even, practicing to make sure that he could carry on a conversation with even the deadliest killers without letting them know if he was scared or not. “If you will follow me the tour will begin.” He began to walk along the path and across the grounds, not looking back to see if his tourist was following or not, and rambled on about things that made no real difference to anyone. Looking back at the boy he asked a simple question but he said it with a weight that would show him to be more evil then he at first appeared, “Do you have an questions, anything at all?” Johnny was testing the waters to see if there was anything off about the boy that Reginald or himself did not already know.