People cheered as the kid realized incredible feats of uncanny strength such as lifting a bench full of fat people over his head, bending a thick metal bar around his chest, and all sort of amazing acts. At the end, they gave him lots of money, which he kept on his big knapsack. The MC came along – “Hell, kid, I don’t know how you can fool those idiots into believing you’re that strong, but you’re the best phony attraction I have in many years! You deserve that money!” the man said as he handled Jason his payment, the boy smiled at the glimpse of his check, but when he was about to grab it from the boss’ hand, he retrieved his hand for one moment – “Now, why don’t you let me see your face? Why you insist on wearing that mask all the time even with me?”

“Sorry, boss – It’s the rule and you know it!” Jason grabbed the check with an incredible ease, smiling back at the astonished man he took his way out of the mini mall’s parking lot, grabbed his bike and went back home as fast as he could – now that his muscular legs were capable of taking him much faster than he could ever imagined.

Jason arrived home by the backyard, quickly changing into his normal clothing – “another day, another dollar!” he thought as he counted his money – “This is going very well, soon I’ll be able to buy everything I need…” he whispered entering his kitchen. The kid went straight to his room, grabbed the precious metal case and opened it.

It has passed almost one week since Jason found the case, he wanted to do everything very calmly, and after all he still didn’t know exactly what that stuff was, yet! Jason recognized in the formulae a lot of fragments which belonged to the anabolic steroids chemical groups – which meant those should be new-generation steroids produced by ChemTech, since it is a state of the art Laboratory specialized in Medical Nutrition and military development industries.

He opened his bag pack, took out a big Bio-Chemistry Encyclopedia – “According to my researches, the red vials must be some kind of artificial Adrenaline compost, giving me super strength for some period, those are different from the green ones whose effects are permanent…” Jason grinned as he once more looked at his massive reflection – “the great thing is I can still pack muscle just by working out normally!” the young man smiled flexing his almost 180 pounds muscle body. Then, he returned his attention to the case – “If I consider the symbols on the blue and yellow vials – they are respectively Calcium and Sodium composts. Since those are very important minerals regarding the muscular contraction system and the whole skeletal tissue development, those vials must represent some sort of physical performance enhancers…” “But those purple ones are rather intriguing, they are not listed on any of the books I’ve researched, the components are similar to amino acids, but there’s something strange about the radical, I’ve never heard of such before!” Jason whispered to himself, and he quickly smiled – “Well, until one week ago, I never heard about amino-acids!! I do need to study more about those subjects if I want to test those other vials, I can’t risk myself the way I did the previous times! I admit it was worth the risk, but now that I’m smarter, I can have much more!” Jason grinned and flexed his body in a most muscular pose, causing another one of his shirts to rip, so tight they were around his new muscular body. This new life was definitely exciting.

Meanwhile, at the ChemTech Labs building…

Private Eye Mark Hennessy looked at the young man in front of him – “Dr. Burroughs, are you telling me that you had no idea who had the codes to your personal vault?” he asked in disbelief.

“It’s like I said, Detective, only I have that code, and I wasn’t in the country when that vault was open! There would be no way for anyone to break into my computer – I had the main disk with me- in case of any emergency!” the tall thin man insisted once more! “My supervisors already attested that they don’t believe I had anything to do with the robbery…”

“I know you didn’t – Dr. Burroughs, but what about your former colleagues? Dr. Cummings and Dr. Ratcliff?” Paul asked looking seriously at the scientist – “But they were fired last year!”

“And we both know why…” Mark added with a mean grin – “Did you keep in touch with them after they were fired?”

“Well of course we are friends!” the scientist gulped as he replied that question.

“How close friends you were, Dr Burroughs?”

“Well, we used to hang out on Fridays and occasionally meet to grab a bite…”

“I see, and it kept that way once they’ve been fired?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t think they could…”

“You’re not here to think Dr Burroughs – that’s why ChemTech is paying me for; I have to retrieve what has been stolen and find the responsible at any cost.” Mark adjusted his lean, strong built, and walked to the door – “If you remember anything else, please let me know it!” he said as he took a last look to Burroughs scared expression.

Mark got out of the modern building and headed to his car – he grabbed the files and once more he read the police reports of the robbery – It didn’t explain how could just one robber handle 4 big and well trained security guards, get into the main vault without firing the alarm – “internal job” Mark concluded – he smiled as he wrote names on a piece of paper, quickly keeping his little notebook back on his large coat’s pocket, started the vehicle and proceeded to the corner where the policeman reported he hit one of the biker who robbed ChemTech.

Back at the Min-Mall, where Jason had just performed

“I can’t fucking believe it! You lost one kid dressed like that?” Patrick slammed the back of Doug’s neck – “Stupid!”

“It was not my fault! There were so many people! I got distracted for one second and the kid vanished! Besides, you said I had to be careful not to let him suspect of anything!” Doug protested rubbing the slapped area.

“Well, at least we know who’s got our stuff!” Patrick adjusted his glasses and read the tabloid headlines “WONDER KID! THE STRONGEST TEEN IN THE WORLD” – “That boy was rather too brave or too stupid to open that case!” Doug commented as he drove their car back to their place.

“He got lucky, that’s all. We know he’s been using the strength enhancers to make some money with that ridiculous freak show!” The blond guy said with a mean grin – “We gotta find him and retrieve what is rightfully ours!”

“What else vials you think he’s been using?” Doug asked trying to make his partner forget about his last failure.

“Judging by his size, I’d say he might have used the Global Enhancer, which could explain the impressive muscular development and his apparently brilliant intellect…”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve thought myself, we’re lucky he hasn’t tried the other stuff!”

“Don’t even think about it, Doug! If that kid the mere idea what he’s getting into, he would pee in his pants!” Pat replied rubbing his right hand, still feeling the wound caused by the gun shot – “We were so damn close! But if the powerful ChemTech Labs couldn’t stop me, it won’t be a mere boy at a freak show who is going to keep me away from my dreams!”

Patrick and Doug worked for the Research Department of the ChemTech Labs as Junior Scientists, responsible for minor testing and proceedings regarding the company’s major Projects – but during one of these minor projects the brilliant duo actually came up with a revolutionary break-through which soon resulted in a series of promising biochemical enhancers – substances that would allow human body to break any previous limitations and restrictions! They would become famous! Internationally recognized, maybe even winning a Nobel Prize, but ChemTech ruined their plans.

Using their filthy lawyers, the Laboratory managed to obtain the rights of the revolutionary formulas exclusively for them, literally “stealing” the work of such dedicated employees – The greed of the Board members spoke louder, and instead of negotiating a reasonable profits division with Patrick Cummings and Douglas Ratcliff – besides, the unscrupulous Directors of the Higher Divisions wanted the fame and the glory for such discovery all for themselves. In sum, Pat and Doug were lured to sign a document in which they attested that their precious discover – The Human Performance Enhancers or HPE – resulted exclusively from the work and under the guidance of ChemTech Main Researches, therefore they resigned any future right regarding the usage or further transactions involving such thing.

Jason woke up all of a sudden – “Oh fuck! I’ve fallen asleep over the books again!” He quickly got up, grabbed his stuff – “That Physics paper was so easy to do” He considered as the printer finished the last page – “With that I am sure I will pass this year!”

The kid went to the kitchen and prepared himself a large portion of food, to compensate for doing so many extra activities outside school, he had spent three hours at the library, the show took him another hour and a half and he still came back home in time to finish his reports and study a little more about his precious case’s contents – “Nothing bad for a slow day!”

After supper, Jason surfed around the net, gathering information on ChemTech projects and products, most of those were classified information, and since Jason still didn’t have hacker skills, he could just read the official site, but it frustrated him a lot – “If only I could break into their systems!” he considered that information for one moment – “Wait a minute, I may personally not know how to do it, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have it done at all!” he exclaimed while grabbing his cell phone – ‘”I hope Larry’s phone is still on the memory!”

Jason remembered the only time he phoned Larry Atkinson – the computer geek – when he had some virus problem, Larry actually gave him some pointers on how to get rid of that menace – The answering machine replied to the incoming call, and Jason got frustrated for a while - “If I can bring him into my side, maybe we can find more about those vials, and I know just the way to convince him!”

Jason grabbed his case and carefully took a few green vials, hid the rest, and left his room – “I should go meet him personally, he’ll probably demand evidences of my story” Jason grinned as left trough the backyard – “I was wondering what could a second dose would do to me”

Larry got back to his room and read the cell display – he didn’t recognized the incoming number, but he decided to know what was that about, when they answered on the other side – Larry wished he didn’t call at all.

“Larry, it’s me Jason Patterson, how are you doing?”

“Jason? Why did you call me at this time?”

“Well, I needed to show you something – can you meet me in front of the school?”

“What? Are you crazy? Why would I ever want to hang out with you anyway?”

“Because you wanna know why, all of a sudden, I started to pay attention on classes, get higher grades without cheating, and most off all, how could I do 300 push ups on gym class! If you wanna know how, meet me at the school in 15 minutes! Be there or be gone! ” Jason hung up.

Larry stood there in disbelief – “What the hell is going on?” he could stay at home, he could just get back to whatever he was doing, but his curiosity around Jason’s latest changes were the main subject around the school. Until one week ago, nobody even noticed Jason Patterson, but now, he participates of the classes, he does all homework, papers and even voluntary assignments, he’s been surprising even the teachers with really smart and intelligent questions, not to mention that he just did over 300 push-ups non-stop at the gym – surprising everybody including the skeptical Coach Briggs who almost ate his whistle.

“Whatever Jason is doing, I’m sure it is not legal, but it might be interesting!” Larry’s hacker nature spoke louder as he searched for his clothing to catch up with the mysterious boy. •