ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

He's spent about half an hour setting up. The trick to using someone else's work area, even one where people lunge in to be patched up by random medical staff all the time--yes, he's observed from the hallway--is to look like you're supposed to be there.

The trick to messing with things God didn't intend to be messed with also involves a measure of simplicity: be there to keep an eye on it. He's not leaving the place until it's safe for anyone else to come in.

Wesker checked earlier to see what he'd have to work with, and set aside some basic supplies. He's also got a disposal container, a sharps container, several dishes, ample glassware, a random portable burner Bar provided with a bright blue flame, and a pair of quite thick gloves. Lycanthropy would complicate his life endlessly, and he doesn't care for the "lose mind and remnants of humanity" aspect, either.

Now, while he waits for his. . . not subject. . . participant! to show up, he's making sure he knows how to use this advanced a microscope.

No, he's not playing, either.

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Really? 'Cause he could've fooled Ryan. Or maybe it's the moon making him assume the worst about people. He's as far from being happy inside the enclosed space as a werewolf can get.

He's at least fairly certain that the walls in here don't move. It's a small comfort.

"Deitmar," he snaps a greeting as he stalks into the room. His eyes keep darting from wall to wall, and he's not even bothering to hide the fact that he has an advanced sense of smell.

Wesker looks up. There's a moment of consideration and reconsideration. The edge he was going to adopt doesn't enter his tone. "Is an open flame going to be a problem?"

There was a short nod of greeting, but other than that, his tone is cool and businesslike. He's working.

He's also trying not to get too cold. He's observed Cooper's men's reactions to scientists, after all. Why add to the stress?

"No." Short and terse is the answer, and he hasn't stopped moving. Normally, he stand still and observe the room. Now? Now he's moving around to manually inspect everything. It's better than pacing in one spot, anyway.

"What's first?" he asks, struggling to keep his tone from not!literally growling.

Wesker doesn't interrupt the prowling or try to prevent him from damaging anything. Okay, Ryan: is this an actual hint of friendliness, or just a tested tone to see if you're going to relax a little for it? (But what does it matter, either way?)

"If you're going to be this on edge for the duration, we'd better take the skin sample as soon as I've had a look at what to expect." Wesker considers for a moment, then hands him a water bottle. "I'd like a cheek swab, to start. Rinse with that first, please-" he remembers Ryan's level of suspicion "-or the tap, if you're worried I've added something." This is a medical bay, not a lab, and there's little paper cups by the sink. "Either way, I don't want what you last ate."

He's going to hold up a Q-tip as Ryan starts to turn away. If Ryan knows the drill, good, his fingers won't be near the antsy werewolf's mouth. If Ryan tries to take it by the cotton bit, he'll try to do it himself.

He's wearing kind of odd gloves. . .

Ryan's thinking more that Wesker knows not to push Ryan right now. At Wesker's comment, he makes a conscious effort to control himself. This results in him...well, not standing still but at least he's keeping to one spot.

"Fair enough," he replies, tone now just stiff rather than gruff. He takes the water bottle and scents it before putting it to his mouth. He swishes and spits three times before turning back to take the swab from Wesker by the stem. He rubs the swab against the inside of his cheek before handing it back.

It smells like mundane water in a mundane bottle.

Wesker takes it carefully, already holding a slide in the other. He applies it to the surface of two slides and drops it in the small, red plastic bucket that's obviously new to the infirmary. He checks the first slide without ceremony, makes a small, annoyed huff, looks thoughtful, and reaches for the second.

This time he starts the flame, dyeing and sealing the slide with the attitude of someone who's just getting to the challenging part. He's moving quickly, but it's obvious he's not about to hurry himself.

He puts the slide in the microscope, checks it, and sighs in a short, annoyed huff. And that's the last time he's going to skip the very basic details. He thought that since he worked primarily with cells, Ryan would just be more suspicious if he asked for an overview, but, well. "Ryan? You would have thought it worth mentioning if you don't have a pulse, wouldn't you?"

Ryan's shifting his weight from foot to foot, trying to watch Wesker, the room, the doors-everything really. He frowns at the first annoyed huff and watches impatiently as he prepares the second.

His eyes narrow at the second annoyed huff.

"Of course," he says, one eyebrow arched. "Why? What's wrong?" He steps forward, agitated, but makes no move towards the microscope. He wouldn't know what to look for if he did.

Wesker would make a very bad family practitioner. Witness:

"On the cellular level, you're quite dead." He has made a concession to this possibly being bad news by dropping his tone a bit and spacing the words out a bit more. Or maybe he's trying to pre-empt a denial.

"Dyed, the microorgans of the cell show slight damage." He glances up sharply. "The nucleus isn't supposed to look like any of these, so I rather suspect your genes are damaged. I haven't seen this before; genetic damage in every cell should be instantly fatal. But if you've got a pulse, you have to have an electrical charge in your cells, and you couldn't have that without cellular respiration.

"--if you need to break anything, do you mind just taking that chair?" He indicates.

Wesker gets a glare. "I'm well aware I'm dead, Deitmar," he grumbles. "I'm not going to cause property damage just because my cells agree with that assessment. Though I do have a pulse." He's just a bundle of contradictions.

Ryan tilts his head. "Can you estimate how long they've been deceased?"

"That's the part that doesn't ma-" Wesker remembers Ryan and the subject of making sense. "You have a pulse. Therefore, your cells are still functioning as alive, as these," he taps the microscope, "won't be able to do anything like. The charge in your body is the straightforward result of cellular respiration--the pumping and containment of materials of different charges in and out of the cell.

"A dead cell isn't going to provide you with any charge at all. No charge, no sensation along the nerves, no contraction or relaxation of the muscles. If your heart's beating, there's electricity in the body. --and don't bring up zombies. I know zombies; they're different."

Aha. New thing to think about! "I'm not sure. I've never had to look back in quite this way." He returns to musing. "I know you've been here for over a month. The timeframe I'm looking at here is quite different. I had to dye them before I was sure what I was seeing. . ."

He's starting to slip into work haze.

Which is fine by Ryan as long as he keeps translating what he says into terms Ryan can understand.

"I have a pulse," Ryan says again, placing two fingers on his wrist while he shifts his weight again. Yes, his heart is definitely beating. "But you say that's not possible if my cells are dead. What options does that leave us?" The tone of voice is still stiff, but this conundrum is helping to distract from the claustrophobia.

"I've been here for a little over three months," Ryan corrects, weight shifting once more. "Does that affect your theories?" Because of course Wesker has a theory already. Ryan's worked with scientists before, after all.

"You can always try to force an electrolyte imbalance," Wesker says thoughtfully. "Electrolytes being the mechanism that your cells use to maintain their charge. Try prolonged exercise. If you lose those through sweat, and the loss affects your functioning, your cells are alive."

He just said that it was potentially bad for Ryan to do this, but he doesn't advise him further on how to not die. Bar can provide literature if Ryan's going to try marathon running.

"It leaves us with--don't even try to tell me this is natural--supernatural interference. We already know you're dead, so it's unlikely to be connected to lycanthropy.

"The thing is, cellular death is a process." His hand describes an arc. "There's no real lightswitch moment, where you can say 'at that moment, that cell died.' It's a decline; it's reversible up until a certain point, and even then the cell isn't, technically, dead. This is accidental cell death I'm looking at, not programmed cell death. The cascade could have started anywhere."

This is a very, very thoughtful look suddenly directed at Ryan. He turns and starts poking through the supplies Bar provided. "Just from curiousity, do you particularly care if you spend the night with half your mouth green?"

He may just try that. He's planning on doing speed runs soon anyway, as part of his preparation for protecting Suzi. Usually he just does the endurance runs, but speed runs may affect him differently. Ryan nods to Wesker.

"For what purpose?" he asks, a brow arched. He doubts it would be just to amuse Wesker, but he's feeling twitchy enough to check.

"I'd like to know the rate at which they're dying." Wesker's rubbing one temple as he thinks. "Maybe your regeneration has something to do with it. So if I have you scrape off the topmost layer, dye the cells as they're still growing, swab them, and pass them over, I'll be able to get a better idea of how quickly they're dying off. It's a bit slapdash, yes, but we're playing this as," quick wave at their surroundings, "conditions allow."

See, Ryan? If you want to live and learn, sometimes you've gotta make like an Easter egg.

Make like an Easter egg?

Ryan nods, weight shifting again. "Alright." He eyes Wesker as he goes through the supplies. "The dye isn't poisonous, of course." He's twitchy. He's going to ask.

And dye.

"It's not made for taste. Yes, it assumes that whatever cells you're using it on are about to die soon anyway. It's also not in a high enough concentration that you're going to damage yourself with it." He's only giving him a few drops, anyway. "Just rinse and spit it out in the sink."

BWAH! *ahem* That was bad. Yes.

He frowns, but nods, swishing and spitting once more. He turns back to Wesker and grabs the offered cotton swab, wiping it once more against the inside of his cheek before handing it back.

Then he rinses his mouth again because that is a most unpleasant taste.

Wesker misses this, since he's busy. It's almost a ritual; here we see a young scientist participating in the appeasement of the laboratory gods. He puts the first slide aside as is, but dyes the second one again. Then he starts looking at them.

". . . hunh."

He changes them.

"Hmm."

Sorry, Ryan. You're not quite as interesting right now.

Ryan's started pacing again, moving around the room to inspect various things. Impatiently, he comes to a stop on the other side of the microscope. Waiting.

Waiting.

"Well?" he grumbles, hands behind his back.

This is not quite a 'who are you, again?' look, but it does suggest Ryan's interrupting.

"If cells were alive when the dye hit, they stained green. Then I added the one that dyes only dead cellular matter. The first slide is almost entirely green; a few displaced dead ones, some detritus. The second one is entirely muddy. Between the point where you gave me the cells and I dyed them, every one went from alive to completely dead." He helpfully spells it out: "That doesn't happen."

There's not quite a growl at Wesker's look, but Ryan's look does suggest that Wesker's pushing just a bit.

"Is it possible that they're allergic to the second dye?" Because he never used to be burned by silver either, you know.

Wesker has his thinking face on. He reaches for a beaker. "You're at the high point of your healing cycle, correct? I can dilute this about a hundred times and you can apply it to a patch of skin--no, wait, a rapid regeneration cycle would likely make you more susceptible to allergic reactions." Which makes a lot of sense, actually.

"It's possible. But none of these are damaged, and I'd expect something that wildly toxic to them to have left visibly mangled cells. An allergic reaction isn't poison as much as it is a heavy immune system response. These are still soft, after all; something that killed them on contact should show it."

Ryan doesn't quite understand the last two sentences, but he gets enough to know the answer to his question is 'no'.

He shifts his weight again and looks around the room while thinking. "So you're saying that somewhere between my mouth and the slide, they all die."

Deitmar would probably explain again in more detail, without sounding put-upon, if he had to.

"Precisely. I've never seen this before. I might be able to devise a test to see if they actually were dying at the same time, but it would require a different method entirely." Wesker thinks for a moment. "I haven't ruled out other factors, but most are self-eliminating due to the extent of the problem. It's not something in the air; it's not temperature or light exposure--you'd have noticed if any of those were causing massive irreversible cellular death."

Back to the microscope, and higher magnifications again.

"I should certainly hope so," Ryan says dryly, keeping a growl from his voice. And now he's back to waiting with nothing to distract him. He's pacing again, keeping to one track on the floor, meditating on the number of squares each step takes.

It's not helping much.