The Creation Gene

Chapter One - Sydney

March 20, 2017

Sydney Cooper

I groaned as soon as I walked into our Advanced Chemistry class. My best friend Amanda was too busy ogling Steve, one of my brother's friends, to notice my contempt. She had been crushing on him for the last two months, but he studiously ignored her. She wasn't his type. He preferred leggy blondes that were surgically enhanced in the boob department. Amanda didn't cut it with her petite frame, size A cups, and mousy brown hair. She never stood a chance.

My twin, Andy, rolled his eyes in agreement with me. They were sea green like my own. Not blue or green, but the color of the foam that rides the waves as the tide rolls in and splashes against the rocks. Andy's eyes were always lit up with a smile. My brother could charm just about anyone and he knew it.

"Sydney, are you sure Andy can't talk to Steve? Maybe set up a double date with me and Steve and him and Lora?" Amanda looked so hopeful.

I turned to see Andy shaking his head at me. He and Lora, his on again, off again girlfriend, were trying their best not to laugh. I glared at them both.

Mr. Rowland, our teacher, saved me from having to answer by starting roll call. He always winced when he got to mine and my brother's names; Sydney and Andrew Cooper. My brother, while having passed first and second year chemistry by some miracle, chose to take advanced placement chemistry just to piss Mr. Rowland off. Andy belonged nowhere near a chemistry class. He was all thumbs. Last year, he'd caused a chemical accident that ended up with the entire school being evacuated due to noxious fumes. I think Mr. Rowland would have gotten down on his hands and knees and thanked God if my brother had opted out of AP Chem.

I turned to stare out the window, shocked to see it snowing. Snow, real live snow in North Carolina. In March. It wasn't just flurries either. The snow was coming down in heavy waves. We hardly ever get snow. Ice storms, yeah, we get plenty of those, but not snow storms. The weather had been strange everywhere the last couple days, though. It started with the earthquake. It hadn't gotten any bigger than a five on the Richter scale at any point.

What made this earthquake unique was that it started in the North Pole and spread out in an ever widening circle until it encompassed the entire earth ending at the South Pole. It had the entire scientific world boggled. We'd even felt it here in the Queen City. There was no major damage. It broke a few city water lines, opened up one or two cracks in a couple of neighborhoods. They weren't even big cracks, just a small slit. No biggie. We even had one on our football field. It was a teensy bit scary for those of us who weren't used to California's earthquake morning rituals, though. Me included.

Mike sneezed beside me, effectively pulling me out of my thoughts. He was one of my brother's two best friends. He looked bad. His face was puffy and his nose red. Everyone in class looked about the same now that I thought about it. We all seemed to have caught whatever crud was going around. Even Andy and I hadn't escaped it. We'd both been sneezing and coughing since yesterday. I'd wanted to stay home, but Mom refused. No fever, no skipping school.

Mike tried to give me one of his sleezy grins. He was a first class jerk who unfortunately had the hots for me. Not that he wasn't gorgeous with all that dark hair and those deep brown eyes, but his attitude sucked. I refused to date a guy who thought he was prettier than me.

"Don't be a hater, pretty baby," Theo, Andy's other best friend whispered. "He's not all bad."

I snorted. Leave it to Theo to try to play matchmaker. Mike had been asking me out all semester and I'd been turning him down. I wished they'd both just get the message and bugger off.

"What the hell..."

Andy stood up and went over to the window. I tried to see past him, but couldn't. Mr. Rowland came over to look out after my brother ignored his request to sit back down.

That's when we all felt it. A tremor shook the school. Glass beakers rattled and wobbled. They fell. The chemicals in the storeroom made hissing noises as they did a dance from the shelves and shattered onto the floor. Smoke began to curl out from under the closet room door, but we all ignored it. The light in the sky had us entranced. It pulsed. It wasn't the sun, but it was something. Something bright and unusually beautiful. We all stood up to get a better look at it.

Then it exploded and that was the last thing I saw before I fell, choking on fumes that snaked around us while we watched the deadly light.