Carlos hadn’t been to a circus in years – not since he was little. But there had been a raffle at work and Carlos had won a coupon for a free ticket. He kinda hoped that his brother and/or his dad were in town so he could invite them to go with him.
Carlos made his way to the ticket office that was set up, standing in the line with his coupon as he looked at everything around him. Some things were different than what he remembered or imagined a circus to be like, but not everything could be a dated cliche trope he supposed.
Once at the ticket office he smiled and offered the coupon. “Hey… this any good?” he asked in a joking manner.
“Could
you?” He pressed curiously, “What like some kind of diet pills or
something?” He joked lightly and shuffled a bit, tucking his hands into
his pants.Carlos pressed his lips together a bit in thought. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I would like to know a little bit more about your physiology to see what I can do, but of course you’ve already proven to be a challenging study. I just need to find out if there’s even a way to get a drug into your body. Your lack of blood will make it near impossible to spread.” Carlos’ gaze drifted off as he started to thin. “Hm… maybe if I give it to you in the blood, since your body seems to absorb that so easily… Hm, yes, it can be done…”
Skip blushed at all of the words and phrases that were directed towards him, for once he was going to be helped instead of shunned. Naturally he smiled eagerly and nodded, “I’d love to try anything you can think of,”
He rubbed his neck nervously, “Really, it’s such a relief to hear you want to help- thank you so much.”
Carlos looked at him, a little bit like he was pulled out of a distracted space. “Hm? Oh – oh, yeah, sure. I’m a scientist – it’s what I do.” He offered Skip a smile. “So… in the meantime, would you like to come up with your ‘act’ for this afternoon? By that, I mean demonstrating, like, different sequences in how your power works. It’ll help my research to see a few different levels of difficulty with your powers.”
He nodded and glanced over his shoulder at the other scientists, “I don’t mean to be rude but I can probably only control two to three people at my most, sorry it’s just.. Sometimes their minds really don’t want to work with me.” He looked back to Carlos, “And I’d hate to get mad at them on stage, so just two or three at most but I’d prefer to just start off with one just so the crowd gets used to the idea..” He offered, folding his hands as he thought of what else to do with these men.
Carlos nodded. “That’ll be fine,” he said. “Part of the fun is for others to watch it too. Do you think you can do it in shifts? Like, do one pair and then finish with them and do another pair?”
“Sure- why not?” He smiled and laughed lightly, but knew that this would all take a mountain of energy that he didn’t usually use. Though he was locked on I’m pressing the town, so he would give it his all. “I’ll try to do something different with every pair- how many are there?”
“Well, I think only four to six scientists will end up participating. The rest just seem pretty content with watching – stage fright, you know?” Carlos smiled at him. “You okay with all that?”
Phew.
“Yeah, of course! I was expecting more but that’s a perfect amount actually,” He huffed and tucked some hair behind his pierced ear, “And everyone is okay with everything this entails?”
“Well, like I said only a few of them are interested in being hypnotized,” Carlos said. “But right before, we can give a quick explanation of what’s going to happen. And it’ll probably be best just to do little things, like making them think they’re driving in a car or something.”
The Perfect Scientist 