01.16

"Flowers For Hobbes"

Written by
Craig Silverstein

Darien and Hobbes find themselves on the trail of a thief who has stolen vials of sperm from the esteemed Nobel Sperm bank. The investigation doesn't take long: all roads lead to a college professor who has been extracting genes he believes are linked to intelligence and injecting them into human test subjects with a retrovirus.

During the arrest, however, a broken glass container full of the retrovirus cuts Hobbes' hand, and he becomes infected. Soon thereafter, Hobbes' intelligence begins to accelerate at a frightening pace. But he and Darien soon discover that past recipients of this gene therapy have rapidly suffered mental breakdowns, degenerating into a kind of permanent, irreversible brainlock. And it's clear the same fate awaits Hobbes.

Soon, Hobbes becomes so brilliant that he knows how to reverse the effects of the retrovirus — but to everyone's surprise, he doesn't want to. He would rather disintegrate as a genius than revert to being what he now considers a simpleton. Darien injects himself with the retrovirus, and asks Hobbes if he will condemn him to the same fate. Hobbes, torn by his conscience, divulges the antidote to The Keeper, and he and Darien are cured.