Fudge Ripple, Guava and Rainbow Sprinkles
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: VC-11
Rating: G
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #1: admiration, Guava #24: just be yourself
Toppings/Extras: rainbow sprinkles
Wordcount: 676
Summary: Ponderings into the past of Victor Blackledge.
Notes: The flavours did lead me to this, but it’s not distinctly obvious how.
“Victor’s a bit... funny, isn’t he?” Taisy asked one day in the locker room that Newson’s black ops team shared. It was very low down in the building: Hamlet Tower was Newson’s in every way, and had Nutriware Ltd emblazoned massively along the northern side in glitzy steel. Deep down, right on par with the lower levels, was the windowless hideout of Newson Labs.
It was a testament to his vanity that he named it after himself.
Robyn Walshe paused in what she was doing-which was removing a small towel from her shoulders and quickly tying her long hair back up into its usual golden cord-and wondered what had made Taisy say something like that. She liked Victor. He was quiet, hard-working, and he did what he was told. What more could you ask for?
“Well, those Blackledge kids are all the same, hey?” Bradley said, stepping out from the shower room and grinning. He had slung on the black overalls that they were allowed to wander about in when they weren’t doing anything important, and his dark, curly hair was wet from the showers.
“Is he... one of those Blackledges?” Taisy asked-she lowered her voice, despite the fact that Victor was not even in the building at that moment. He had showered quickly and left before anyone of them had even started. Robyn rolled her eyes as Bradley laughed.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Robyn supposed that Taisy wasn’t to blame for her lack of knowledge: after all, she was new to the team. Still, wasn’t it obvious that Victor was one of the Blackledge Children: hundreds of kids that had been genetically engineered and subject to every experiment under the sun? The shock of dark hair, the pale skin that refused to change colour, his painful awkwardness when it came to people... it all added up. He was one of the genetic experiments of Dr Gideon Blackledge, clear as day.
“I guess,” Taisy said, and then faltered. “I just... I thought it’d be rude to ask, is all.”
“He doesn’t mind talking about it,” Robyn said, turning around and adjusting the spaghetti-straps of her vest. She had on combat trousers, as she always did, and she slung her foot onto one of the narrow benches to strap on her trademark boots. “Just don’t go on about it.”
“Series V, Batch C, Number 11,” Bradley winked. “That’s why we call him Victor, see? It’s... errm, well, it’s close-ish.”
“So, well, is he...” Taisy struggled with her next word.
“Mutated?” Robyn asked flatly. “Not really. He has perfect photographic memory and he hates talking, but he’s not one of the nutters that burned down the Blackledge Facility.” She flinched. That had given the Blackledge Children a really bad name: a group of them had burned down the entire laboratory where they had been formed and raised and tested, and a lot of them had escaped and scattered. The rest had been released, filtered into orphanages, and had grown up into nearly ordinary folk. They were easy to spot, though: mostly, people let them go about their own business without too much of a fuss. Of course, though, there were always troublemakers...
“OK, well, I wasn’t saying-...” Taisy began nervously.
“It’s fine,” Robyn said, finishing up with her laces. “He’s a good kid. Don’t worry if he doesn’t talk at you or even look at you for a month or so, he just doesn’t really... know you yet.” Victor took a while to get used to people. Robyn felt that this was fair enough. And who liked people who babbled on all the time?
“All right,” Taisy said. She bit her lip, smoothing down her dress and pulling a hoodie over it to fend off the cold. The concrete walls here seemed to suck heat from the air. “I wasn’t being rude or anything...”
“I know,” Robyn said.
“You coming out today, Rob?” Bradley asked, tilting his head and sticking his hands into his pockets.
“No, thanks: I’ve got work to do,” she replied-as usual.