Breeder Plague: Chapter III

Mark hadn’t bothered to check the plants when he’d come staggering back in at four in the morning. He’d had fun, even if the Untouchable Bonita had shot him down.

Again.

So he’d just went to his bed, looked blearily at the (sadly empty) bed, then toppled over.

On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t too bad that the bed was empty, because fuck Mark was tired.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have had those extra… extra drinks,” he muttered to himself as he fell asleep. Hopefully Thomas wouldn’t decide to wake up with his shitty alarm, since the walls in the dorm suites were paper thin.

“Aghhhhh….” Mark said and then passed out.

And in what seemed like a few seconds he was awakened by…

Thomas’ fucking alarm.

Mark rolled out of bed, literally, hitting the ground and groaning. “Thomas, I’m going to kill you, man!” That stupid alarm was playing reveille again. Goddamn we’re lucky the rest of the floor hasn’t called up a lynch mob!

He got up and went staggering out of the room, snagging the beer he’d brought back from the union. No sense in letting it go to waste.

“Thomas, c’mon man, will you turn…that… fucking…” Mark’s voice trailed off.

“Dude, you know I need a loud alarm to get up in the morning,” Thomas said. “It’s not my fault you’re like hyper—what the the fuck?”

“Yeah.” Mark stared at the corner of the room. There they had been growing the weed. Where Mark had put the seeds in, last night.

And now it was completely enshrouded in little vines, with tiny white flowers blooming, filling the air with a sort of sweet scent.

“Um… Yeah.” Thomas pointed at the flowers. “Is it just me, or does shit just not grow that fast.”

“I dunno…”  Mark shrugged. “I mean, maybe special growth fertilizer?”

“It’s  the same shit we’ve always grown stuff in,” Thomas said. “Mark, what if someone comes in here?”

“We’re growing flowers?” Mark shrugged. “It’s not like someone’s gonna come down and check what type of flowers they are.”

“Unless they notice that they’re the same type of flowers that they’re growing in the lab!” Thomas looked around. “We broke in!”

“Look, it’s not a problem!” Mark shook his head. “Get dressed, and we’re gonna go out on campus.”

“Why? No classes.”

“Right, and so if there are a lot of people around the lab, they know something happened. If not, we are clear.” Mark gestured at the window. “Trust me.”

“Unless they see the flowers!” Thomas reached down and poked a bundle of the small white flowers, releasing a cloud of pollen. He sneezed.

“In our room. When was the last time someone came to our room who wasn’t high or bored?” Mark shook his head. “C’mon.”

“Fine. If we go to prison, I’m blaming you.”

“Christ, no wonder you got caught all the time.”

*****

Mark and Thomas got dressed and headed out, Mark muttering to Thomas. “Look  nothing is going to be a problem, you just have to stay calm and—fuck….” He’d looked up, across the quad, down the path they’d taken last night on their way back to the dorm. It looked normal.

Except for one of the benches being enshrouded in thin vines with familiar flowers sprouting from them. A little further on, a great had vines wrapping around it, other runners going out onto the grass.

“No trouble?” Thomas asked. “How about an entire campus worth of trouble.” 

“Keep your voice down!” Mark hissed. “Look, okay, nobody knows we were there. So maybe one of them accidentally spilled some.”

“And June isn’t going to mention you were asking questions?”

“No, June isn’t—“  Mark shook his head. “Just, calm down. Okay, no freaking!”

“We’re so…”

“Hey Mark,” A voice sounded behind them. “I didn’t think you got up before noon.”

Mark spun around and standing in front of him, among the rest of her posse, was Bonita. Dark, curly hair fell to her shoulders, the bright fabric of the cheer leading uniform contrasting with her dark skin. The other members of the team were also dressed up, standing by their short captain.

“So, um, Bonita,” Mark said. “I thought you were done with the game…”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we have to have something like practice.” The cheer captain flicked an errant lock of hair out of her face and smirked. “You know, to stay good, and in shape.” She turned and wiggled her ass, the uniform skirt rising up a little to show off her smoothly muscled thighs.

Wish it was shorter, Mark thought. Bonita’s team shook their head, Sharon and Su Lee both sighing at the way their captain was acting.

“Showing off again,” Sharon asked. “C’mon, Bonita, we need to get to practice.”

“Right.” Bonita smirked. “Maybe you two can show up—but you can just look. No touching.”

Then Su shook her head and sniffed. “Anyone smell that scent?” She glanced over at the flowers. “Were those here yesterday?”

“Um, yes!” Mark said. “Totally, they were all here yesterday! You must have just missed them, because what kind of plant would grow that fast?”

Su blinked at him and shook her head, her bob of night-black hair haloing her cute face. She bent down to sniff the flowers.

“It’s sort of a nice…” She shook her head and sneezed.  Once, twice, three times. “Ack!” pulled back from the flowers. “Pollen!”

Mark stared. She was right.  In fact, her sneeze had produced an entire cloud of pollen spread out over the little group.

“Ah!” Bonita dodged back. “I do not need my allergies going crazy today! Right, let’s go,” And with that the little gang left, some of the girls giving Mark and Thomas casual waves.

“Hey, you know, something, Mark?”

“What, Thomas?”

“If I work reaallllyyy hard, can I be as smooth as you are? Can I? Huh, Can I?”

“Shut up, Thomas.” Mark shook his head. “But see, nobody cares.”

“Until the cops break our doors down,” Thomas muttered.  “But okay, let’s go.”