There are many stories that will go untold in the last chapter of Derek and Aubrey's time at college, at least for now. The thing to know is that they would not walk across a stage and receive a diploma while a dean moved their tassel to the other side of their cap. They would however succeed in the reason they had ventured there to begin with, but only fleetingly, and at great cost.
Most companies utilize safeguards to protect their precious information. Connie Kendrick's pharmaceutical company certainly did, especially when it came to the role she played in research and development. But those safeguards were overseen by people that Connie did not want viewing her top secret project. She felt the safety protocols that were already in place would be sufficient. so with the twins help, no one else oversaw or guarded Connie's digital data on body hopping. In her field, she was a driven, brilliant scientist. But in the realm of cybersecurity, she was dumb as a post.
This ended up helping Nevyn greatly. After being banished from helping Connie and the others, Nevyn reverted to his early years as a body hopper. He blended in, stayed in the shadows, and tried to learn everything he could to survive. Instead of sitting idly by while others gained the power he wanted returned to him, he educated himself with the help of the internet on all things corporate espionage. He wanted to know what was happening in Connie's laboratory, and wanted unfettered access to everything in it.
It took him a few months to gain a level of competency with computers, but once he did, he found that Connie's decision to lower their cyber defenses, or at least keep them updated, had left a sizeable doorway open for him. The amount that Connie had compiled already was impressive, and Nevyn did not know where to begin. On their last meeting, Connie had told him that the mystery element that allowed him to hop bodies had fused with the body he currently resided in. Subsequently, he was stuck in Derek's body, and Connie had told him it was too dangerous to swap him out, at least for the time being, but seemed to think that it might be possible in the future.
Nevyn wanted to believe the hope she had briefly dangled in front of him was true, but he didn't think so. He needed to know all the facts for himself. He wanted to see if getting his power back was possible, even at great risk. He felt like he had nothing to lose at this point, so he didn't care if the reversal process killed him. As long as he was trapped in one body, he already felt like a dead man walking. So the first thing he searched for was the research on the genetic anomaly that he had spread through the Johnson's family tree a couple of centuries ago.
It was here that Nevyn hit a wall that had nothing to do with Connie's security, and would not be one he could circumvent. Almost all of her research notes were gibberish to him. For every line that could be understood, there copious amounts of equations, formulas, and some form of short hand that would take him months or years to try and decypher. He longed for the days when he could just possess someone and instantly piggyback off their knowledge. This was much more tedious. At least all of her files and scans were organized, and she seemed to update them daily. He spent over a week pouring over the notes, jotting down things that he could understand, and skimmed over the rest. The little he did learn still didn't really make sense to him. And the question marks that Connie had put into her notes made Nevyn think that she didn't understand it all that well either.
At the back of the lab, in one of the rooms with opaque walls instead of glass, she had isolated the gene and put it under a microscope. That alone had been an agonizingly slow and painstaking process that needed multiple blood samples from the twins. The genetic anomaly had to be carefully isolated from those samples, and the clock was ticking because it degraded quickly. She was left with a sample of just the gene that could be observed with the naked eye, but was still smaller than a dime. For all that effort, she was still only rewarded with light reflected back at her, same as always. Its atomic structure was hidden from her and remained more a mystery than ever before.
The breakthrough came when she had left a sample out on accident at the end of the day.. When she had returned and entered that room the next morning, she didn't immediately turn on the lights. She had enough light that filtered in from the hall, and so she took a moment to set down her laptop and bag she had brought with her. Her eyes had gone to where the sample lay, and she had seen that only the faintest glow was coming from the container she had sealed it in. She turned on the light and hurried over to look, but even with just her naked eyes, she could tell its brightness had been restored.
An idea formed in Connie's mind, and she turned off the lights again. The sample went back to its moderate glow. She shut the door completely, and the glow disappeared entirely. It was a windowless room, and no light filtered in from outside, just the tiniest crack from under the door. She stumbled back through the room, carefully feeling her way as her eyes tried to adjust using only the tiniest bit of light available. When she stood in front of the sample again, she lowered her face to it. Her eyes strained and tried to make out what she was seeing. She only saw blackness in the container. She picked up the container that held it carefully, studying it through the glass, and tried to position it where it could pick up the tiny portion of light from the hall.
If the light caught it, it would glow again, and that's all her naked eye could see. If the light was not on it, it only saw a dark mass. But there was a small moment in between, less than a fraction of a second, where Connie's eyes thought she perceived something. The only clue as to what this might be Nevyn had copied down from her notes. It simply said, "In between light and dark, it is like I am looking into a mirror."
It was an odd statement, which is why Nevyn had written it down. He would not understand what that meant until decades later. But at present, none of what he could read made any sense to him and was getting him nowhere, so he decided to look elsewhere. Connie was meticulous in how she kept her digital files organized, which Nevyn greatly appreciated after he stumbled upon the journal entries. Connie had made Nevyn keep journal entries, but it had mainly been about his past. Here he found ones from Aubrey, Derek, Bekka, and Nancy. He had known Nancy was getting involved, but didn't fully know how. He clicked on her first one and began to read.
As he dove into what the team had been up to in his absence, his anger grew quickly as he realized they had truly begun to experiment only after getting rid of him. In fact, they had begun using Nancy Johnson as a test subject the very day they had ousted him. But his anger soon was replaced with curiosity as he read more and more. Then it was replaced by surprise as he learned the path they all seemed to be taking, one of moral depravity that he was all too familiar with. And the icing on the cake was when he discovered that Connie had added certain notes to the journals that corresponded with audio files. They were even more extensive than the journals and left everyone except Connie with zero moments of privacy. Nevyn correctly guessed that Connie had bugged each of their phones so that the rest of them could hide nothing from her. Through all of this, it was like he was there with them, during each and every encounter. Over the next several weeks, Nevyn made it his mission to play catch up until he had brought himself into their present and could listen in real time. This is what he learned.
Nancy Johnson was behaving differently. Derek and Aubrey noticed she dropped by the lab more often. Before, it had been by Connie's invite only. Connie had successfully activated the body hopping gene in Nancy, and had begun a comprehensive analysis of her behaviors and new extensive powers. Things had gone well for all of two sessions, and then Nancy had flown the coop. Against Connie's directives, Nancy had abandoned her mission while possessing Bekka's body, and had used it to seduce and fuck Nancy's husband, Richard. Connie had anticipated something like this would happen, but not so soon. She thought Nancy 's age and experience would have kept her more in control of herself, but the gene had won out in the end.
Connie's observations noted a sharp, moral decline, especially early on in the process, but not until it was triggered by lustful desire. Nevyn had been happy to remain out of site and careful not to be discovered, but as soon as he had lusted after another man's bride, he had abandoned all previous good judgment. Derek and Aubrey had been no different, but Connie had thought it was their youth. Nancy's choices had confirmed her theory however. Nancy had been older and wiser, but she too had been lured quickly by the prospect of sexual gratification in the body of one that had not been her own. The body hopping gene allowed one to transfer their soul to a new host, connect to their memories and personality, and control them. But the gene also seemed to come with an unsettling drawback. It corrupted both souls involved. Connie also wondered to what extent it affected those within proximity of it.
Derek and Aubrey had brought their mother back to Connie, who had expressed her disapproval of Nancy's actions. Nancy feigned remorse, and a promise to never do it again. She then wasted no time in offering to possess Bekka again, or anyone for that matter. Nancy was hooked, and like an addict, she quickly began looking for the next fix. As part punishment, and to gather the additional data she had obtained covertly on Nancy's provocative jaunt back home, Connie had told her they'd resume in a month, but she was still to send in her daily journal entries. Nancy had protested, but it had fallen on deaf ears. She looked to her children for support, but they too had been surprised and a little disgusted at her behavior in the way their mother had chosen to use their friend's body to sleep with their father. Nancy found their objection on this matter very hypocritical, and rightfully so.
Nancy returned to her home and the embrace of her husband. Richard's greeting was so exuberant and loving that she burst into tears. This confused him greatly, and he had led her into the kitchen and made her some tea. He thought she was feeling bad about using Bekka's body to sleep with him, or maybe to kiss him briefly, but sensuously with their daughter's mouth, or maybe something else entirely. After she had taken a few sips and dried her tears, he ventured a careful, "What's wrong?"
Nancy gestured to her body with disdain. "This."
Richard hesitated. "You just motioned to yourself. This feels like a trap."
Nancy gave a bitter laugh. "I know what it's like to be young again, Richard. I had forgotten what it was like to not have my joints ache just after waking up in the morning, or to be able to look into a mirror and not be able to see even one wrinkle."
"Yeah, but, I mean..."
"Didn't you like me young, Richard? If I wasn't attached to this old body, I could be anyone. I could be anyone for you, Richard. Wouldn't that be nice?"
