<div align="center">(http://i416.photobucket.com/albums/pp250/jlop985/Internet%20Posting/felicia2_0_jpg_595x325_crop_upscale_q85.jpg)</div><hr/><hr/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>Blake Leonard</strong></span><strong> =Undisclosed location in New York= </strong>-Feeling tired-<br/><hr/><hr/><br/>Blake woke up to the smell of agar and tri-buffered saline, it was not pleasant.  The red head had fallen asleep in the lab again after preparing her experiments.  The young scientist was trying to find the gene, or perhaps even genes, that gave natural born mutants [NBM] their powers.  After joining S.W.O.R.D she had learnt so much about the ever rising number of meta-humans, particularly the NBMs and the genetically altered individuals.  She came to conclusion that if someone could artificially gain mutant powers by altering their DNA, then the root of the NBM powers must also be linked to their genes.  After her incident in the university lab a few months ago, she now decided that she herself was a prime example to support her claims. If this was true, then perhaps she could find a way to inhibit the 'meta-human gene' from being expressed, rending the individual a normal powerless human.<br/><br/>The young scientist yawned as she walked over to the back room where she had stored her samples the night before.  She had inserted several gene sequences that she suspected to be the 'meta-human gene' into bacteria  and hoped that one of her samples would show results.  Making sure she wore gloves and her lab coat (she didn't want another incident to occur), Blake carefully placed each sample under her microscope one at a time and noted anything of significance.<br/><br/><sub><em>•Samples 01 though to 10 - gene sequence #65<br/>Normal growth, no observable abnormalities. <br/><br/>•Samples 11 through to 20 - gene sequence #66<br/>Samples 11 to 13, 16 to 20 normal growth, no observable abnormalities.<br/>Sample 14 and 15 are growing mold, contaminated samples.<br/><br/>•Samples 21 through to 30 - gene sequence #67<br/>All samples show an abnormal amount of growth over a 4 hour period. <br/><br/></em></sub><br/>Blake pulled her tired eyes away from the microscope's eyepiece and took her glasses off.  She was tired and really needed to wake up.  She took her gloves off and rubbed her eyes.  "I'll need to wait another four hours to see if anything changes," she murmured to herself. "Maybe I'll go out and get a coffee in the mean time."  She began packing up her things, it was already nearing on noon when she had finished and taken off her lab coat.<br/><br/>Her little lab wasn't really in the middle of nowhere, in fact it was definitely right in the heart of the city.  Yet all the twists and turns you had to make to simply get to the front made it feel like she was in a maze.<br/><br/>She opened the iron bolted security door with a combination of her key card, finger print, and eye scan.  Security around her was crazy.  She enjoyed the sense of security but at the same time she felt like she was in a prison.  The door opened to the storeroom in the back of a tiny little book shop in the middle of a quiet alleyway in the center of the big apple.<br/><br/>"Morning Gladys." Blake greeted the seemingly delicate shopkeeper with a smile. She always got the impression that the little 30 something year old lady was hiding something, aside from a secret high tech lab underneath her shop.<br/><br/>"Morning Gene, did you sleep downstairs again?"<br/><br/>"Haha, yea sorry about that.  I just had some really important work I wanted to do last night and it couldn't wait until the morning."<br/><br/>The two waved farewell as Blake exited the shop and made her way onto the main road.  "Starbucks is just down the road I think, what should I get, an iced mocha? Maybe that new strawberry trifle frappe?"<br/>