[B]A Junkyard, New York City
10:30 AM[/B]

Kevin Ford bit his lip as he worked on repairing a Model-T from below. When his frantic efforts only seemed to cause things to get worse his foremost teeth tightened like a clamp. A lone droplet of blood emerged from Kevin's lip as he panicked due to shower of oil from the vehicle above him.

He reached away from under the car and clenched his lips and eyelids shut, he was in no mood to accidentally take a swig of crude oil.

Seconds later his manic fingers felt their way around a rag, once securing a grip Kevin abruptly snatched it and drove his closed hand to the source of the leak. He precisely followed the trail of hot oil to a slender pipe along the edge of the car's underbelly, where he tightly wrapped the thick rag around, hoping to choke the leak and provide at least a temporary solution to the mechanical issues.

When he'd secured the rag, he took a match under the car, cautiously shielding it to avoid starting a fire, and saw that the rag was holding up surprisingly well. So, in an effort to quit while he was ahead, he then pinched the minuscule flame with his gloved fingertips before tumbling between the two left tires from under the car. With that project at a temporary resting point, Kevin stood straight up, stretching his stressed out spine, and gazed around the area.

Amongst other things, he had been restoring a dogfighter in his spare time. Despite not really expecting completion any time soon, Kevin loved the notion of owning an airplane.

Now, technically all of the items within the gates of the yard belonged to a wealthy man who had occupancy in New Mexico. And Kevin was, by all accounts, a gamin. Still, as the sole person to ever have an interest in these specific things in the least accessible part of a junkyard, a destination rarely visited by the general public anyway, he'd decided that he was the only logical owner to the projects he'd chosen.

While looking out at the airplane he'd adopted, Kevin heard a loud and sudden rustling.

He snapped his gaze behind his back, spinning around and readying himself for hard contact. But he merely heard the sound of old bean cans falling down the side of a pile of waste. The source of the disturbance was coming from the top of the hill. So, readying himself, he grabbed hold of his wrench and gripped it like a club before starting to march up the pile of trash.

As he set his foot on top of a radio set, he felt it begin to change its balance, but not enough to stop Kevin from using it as a stepping stone. From there, he hopped up a few feet, landing on a wooden crate partially covered by rotting fruits and a set of magazines. As Kevin prepared to go higher again, setting his sights on a firm looking guitar case, he heard the rustling stop. He waited for it to continue, but all he heard was a squeak. Then, instead of a continuous rustling, there was a clash of metal against metal as a ferret emerged from within a set of kitchen pots.

It began to dash downward, almost slyly slipping past Kevin, except it fell a bit short, and had a wrench thrown at it.

The sight of seeing something instantly fall unconscious from a blunt blow is horrifying the first time you see it. But after doing it every couple days and doing it as a reflex it stops bothering you.

Kevin carefully lowered himself down the side of the pile of trash and besides the ferret, which he scooped up along with his wrench before heading down.

When he finally got down, he went over to a spot he visited often, his little 'kitchen'. It was a pile of old newspapers dipped in oil with a pot suspended above it. He tossed the ferret into the pot after sucking the life out of it and lit a flame below.

Now all he had to do was wait. It's times like these he sometimes would think about his father and the life he'd led before at public school. Then it hit him like his wrench hit the ferret:

[B]"I should've been at the Institute an hour ago!"[/B]

He jumped onto his feet and took off running out of the junkyard, augmenting his speed with the bio-energy he'd leeched from the ferret.

"God! God! God!"