| Back to Main Menu Eden Market by Joseph Carroll Lavelle Gonzo paleobotanist, Walter Addams, had never shown anything but reckless disregard for the disciplines of his chosen field. His methods were highly unorthodox, his theories balked at widely accepted paleobotanical tradition, and he had no respect for his peers. Despite all this, however, Addams remained the Darling of the paleobotanical scene. He was able to pull this off because, the fact of the matter was, he was brilliant. He published his first article in the International Geology Review at the age of 16. He completed his Masters Degree five years later. Still in his early twenties, while pursuing his PhD, he made discoveries which won him the Donath Medal awarded by the Geological Society of America. His youth and good looks along with his rebellious ways and party-boy reputation made him the Botany poster boy for the new millennium. His face graced the covers of numerous magazines, he was a regular guest at Heff’s mansion, and was often seen at nightclubs with hot Hollywood celebrities. Controversy surrounded him. For quite some time the world had become much more interested in who he was sleeping with and where he was partying and vacationing and took much less interest in the actual work he was doing. This was just the way Walter wanted it. If they were to discover the true nature of his work he would surely be called a madman. He would be exiled from the scientific community. He would be a target of assassination. Walter was patient. He knew that in the end he would rise above all. For the last three years he had been unearthing fossils in Tanzania. Focusing on three sites of excavation in the vicinity of Lake Victoria, he used Hutu refugees from Burundi to do most of the digging. They were cheap and no one would ask questions if they were to “disappear”. His work had not been in vain. While working at a site outside of Mwanza, Walter unearthed a fossil of a tree previously unknown to the Botanical World. Its qualities matched perfectly those he had hypothesized. This was the single greatest find in the history of humanity, the Tree of Knowledge described in the Book of Genesis. Walter had the fossil carefully packaged and shipped to his office in New Jersey. He arranged the “disappearance” of each of the Butu who had seen the fossil. Then he began his journey home. He was now ready for the next stage of his dream. He would genetically engineer a duplicate of the Tree of Knowledge. As sole possessor of its Fruit, he would rule the world. |
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