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| Scene Title | What You Did |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | During routine tests, a terrible revelation is made… |
| Date | July 7, 2010 |
History says that Doctor Josef Mengele listened to Wagner in his surgical theaters before and during performing invasive operations on patients. While the sounds of Chopin bear little musical similarities to the works of someone like Wagner, Doctor Dmitri Gregor bears plenty of visual simlarities to the dreaded Doctor Mengele to make up the difference, especially covered in as much blood as he is.
Stepping out of the noisy surgical room with a shake of his head, rubber gloves are snapped off and thrown down into a waste basket with a biohazard sign on it. "There was nothing I could— do," Gregor admits with a shake of his head in defeat. "The cells were deteriorating at too rapid a— rate, for me to be able to control the bleeding and tissue loss. We're going to need to go back to the drawing board again, but I— assure you, Doctor Cong, that we'll get this right eventually."
It is little comfort to Doctor Bao-Wei Cong that Gregor has hope for the future of the project. Ever since Desmond Harper ordered a half on Bao-Wei's current plan of Formula development, it has been nothing but one gross mutation after another, different bloody ways to die and rupture. The drawing board has been gone back to enough times since then that it might as well be kept in the surgery room.
Perhaps also of no comfort is the fact that Gregor was elbow deep in someone. This isn't so much a concern for Bao-Wei as it is for the more captive audience contained in this waiting room. Strapped to a gurney with her hair finally starting to grow back in, Noriko Amagi has been privy to the screams underpinning the lyrical mastery of Chopin for the last thirty minutes. Merciful silence of death is only cold comfort.
After all, she's next.
It has been days since Desmond Harper put a fist to the glass around Doctor Cong's mood. From one radical degree to another, his aforementioned mood has gone from the high that success brings, to the dark low that can only exist in the truly unattached. Harper's news that he is to start over- to give up- is at this point in his life, the worst thing that he could ever hear. to be as invested as he was for so many years, to climb that ladder only to have it pushed out from under you- in a way, he is not so heartless, as the heartbrokenness that comes with this is of the utmost clarity. To say he now knows how it feels to be around himself- it would indeed be so accurate.
In the end, he found many ways to cope with this percieved loss. Some far more literal than others.
To those who work with him, he has seemed off-color as of late; paler than usual, features somewhat drained as if he were not getting enough oxygen. The most interesting part, however, is that he has not functioned any differently at all physically. The changes appear superficial. Many of his technicians have taken it to be the aftermath of a fall. That just maybe Harper has unsettled him to the point that just maybe he will change. It is wishful thinking above all else.
For all intensive purposes, best guess is that the stress has finally gotten to him.
"Eventually is not soon enough." Doctor Cong's answer is bitter, almost snappish in its quickness. The speed and accuracy issue is the reason they are here to begin with. Bao-Wei may not look the part of an infamous Nazi, but as he is similarly covered in a great red mess, it is clear that purpose rings parallel. He is there to discard his gloves and mask second. "If there is not a leap made soon, I suspect that we will get the same lectures a second time…"
Noriko is strapped to the chair and looking at the great big blood mess that is the two doctor's who've stepped out to get changed. Her eyes wide while she struggles to get herself up and out of whatever restraints are holding her in. Beads of sweat forming on her forehead as she tries with every ounce of herself to access a power that is currently suppressed. She has a hard time not listening to the utter fear that roils through her when he sees Gregor, memories of what happened in Madagascar always swirlign around her. Of being opened like a cadavar and watching as he kept injecting Claire's blood, or her organs to heal the other woman.
This time, however, this is no Claire around to provide an all purpose healing agent, instead its just her and Gregor, and Noriko Amagi is terrified. Candace Allard hasn't reasserted herself, memories of trauma and reasoning still buried beneath the layers of Sarisa's manufacturing. Where once might have been a woman who was defiant to the bitter end, is instead a woman almost gibbering with fear at what may be done to her.
As if the babbling sobs of Noriko weren't anything unusual, Gregor continues his business-talk with Bao-Wei. Walking over to the gurney Noriko is strapped to, Gregor circles around to the head, then begins pushing the wheeled bed towards the double doors of the operating room. "Eventually will have to do," is Gregor's somewhat chiding response as he clunks the door open with the gurney.
Bringing Noriko in for prep, Gregor wheels her past a table where a bloodied lump beneath a red stained sheet may have at one time been a person. Past this atrocity he brings her down a tiled corridor beneath fluorescent lights, speaking to Bao-Wei all the while as the sounds of Chopin draw closer. "Unless you have some— results, that you failed to share with our superiors, your previous work is abject failure."
Rounding a corner, Gregor rolls Noriko into the operating theater where a handful of attendants are ready to begin preparing her for their work. Syringes of muscle relaxers, an electric razor and several other surgical impliments lay on smooth steel trays. Gregor departs from the bed, moving over towards a sink to scrub down.
"I think this surgical— implant will help us track the electrical impulses in the brain that you and Doctor— Sheridan discovered. By knowing what portions of the brain are stimulated by abiltiy use, we could potentially have a better— map or what we need work with, yes?"
Doctor Cong remains stone-faced as he follows Doctor Gregor and his newest 'ward'. He does not have results. Not yet. Just innate fears, and generated ones. He waits for his turn at the sink, halted near Noriko's gurney. She can see most of his back, his shoulders blocking out most of what is in that particular direction. For now, she is able to observe the other part of the lab and the tensing of his shoulders under uniform.
Absently, he does answer. Though it is more like a fortune cookie than anything relevant, his volume low. "We all know that maps lead the way."
Noriko looks between the two at the talks of implants, and she shakes her head a little while she lays there on the gurney, looking back and forth between the two. "No… don't mess with my brain. I've had so much damage to it… you could kill me or something," she protests, which isn't entirely false. After two strokes and the Haitian messing around in there, some might consider it a blessing that Noriko has most of her facilities at all. Her eyes continue to look between the two while she struggles in the bonds, hoping to find a weak point.
"Or something!" Gregor cheerfully states over his shoulder with a hiss of shortened breath and a push of his glasses up the bridge of his nose. With his hands scrubbed down, one of his surgery attendants hands him a fresh pair of latex gloves, tugged and snapped on as he moves away from the sink to allow Bao-Wei the grace of not having to squeeze in to wash up together. Gregor is as much a creature of personal space as Doctor Cong is. In fact, they're alike in ways Gregor doesn't even yet realize.
"Alice, I'll need you to shave the area on the subject's head around the temporal lobe." In saying that, Gregor picks up a black marker from the table, watching as Noriko is injected with a muscle relaxer, fast acting in that it numbs her extremities, makes the onset of minor paralysis feel as terrifying as the prospect of lying helpless on a gurney as she's unstrapped and lifted over onto an examination table.
When she's set down, Gregor marks a dotted path in a half circle across the hydrokinetic's forehead and up into her short hair. "Just… this area will— suffice." Wheezing a breath, Gregor coughs into his closed fist as aforementioned attendant clicks on the electric razor to trim down the airea before shaving.
Terrible proverbs aside, Bao-Wei seems in as mellow a mood as he has ever been in. He wordlessly moves to the scrubbing sink, rolling up faintly spattered sleeves to his elbows and listening to the situation over his shoulder. He looks, when he hears the razor. The hot water coming from the sink to wash sterile soap away steams out of the faucet; he can see the plume coming from the steel arc before he ever feels it. Or feels it at all. When it finally occurs to him to look back, the scrubbing combined with his coping mechanism has torn several small pieces of flesh from his forearms.
No blood.
The lava-hot water continues flowing, feeling for all the world like a lukewarm soak.
Still elbow-deep in the station, which is now practically billowing steam, Doctor Cong casts a somewhat panicked look back over his shoulder to Gregor. To Gregor's back. His back. He is not looking.
The Chinaman pulls his hands free abruptly, tugging hard at his sleeves, pulling them down over raw, bloodless lacerations before going about his usual motions and grabbing for gloves. If there is nothing out of the ordinary to notice, it will not be noticed at all. Right?
Noriko doesn't notice Dr. Cong, her attention is far too much taken by what is happening immediately in front of her. The shaking stopping as the paralytic begns to bring her body under control, even if it it isn't the control that she wants. Her eyes looking around in panic, as she struggles to lift a finger or do anything while she is prepped for surgery.
The buzzing clip of the trimmers going across Noriko's head shaves down her hair to a short, dark bristling in that marked patch, loose hair brushed away from the table by another attendant. Gregor watches with scrutiny as shaving cream is applied to the side of her head and a razor scrapes away the last of the hair is shaved away to bare skin marked with a dashed outline. As the white foam is washed away, Gregor goes to inspect what they'll be implanting today.
"You'll be surprised with this…" Gregor notes as he picks up something the size of a cell phone from the metal tray. "The Institute has cutting edge man-machine— interfaces." Lips pull up into a smile as the cylindrical plastic tube and dangling wires is turned around in Gregor's hand. "The science has come a long way and I am frankly— excited to test it here. There may be some risk of brain damage, but…"
The implant is set down on the table and Gregor's gloved hand moves towards the bone saw nearby, offering a painted smile before his free hand pulls up his paper mask and he steps over to Noriko's side. "Could you hold her head for me, Doctor— Cong." Always with his odd breathy cadence of speech, Gregor emphasizes odd, inappropriate words.
It is not as if Bao-Wei's mind is in a place to notice, or care. By now he has gotten so used to it that he simply ignores it. With a slight haste unbefitting his regular behavior, Doctor Cong reaches out to take Noriko by the back of her skull. His touch, even through the gloves, is unnaturally frigid.
He can feel the same sensation, suddenly aching deep in his bones.
Noriko looks up at Gregor, her eyes imploring him not to do this while they flicker over to the implant that he wants to put into her brain. She'd shiver if she could at Bao's touch, but for now the hydrokinetic is at the mercy of the two deanged doctors while they continue with their experiments, her eyes rolling in her head while she struggles to break through the suppression drug, hoping that maybe it'll wear off and she can escape the situation.
The sudden whine of a bone saw turning on comes with a very attentive look to the front of her head. "I'm going to make four incisions, then remove the detatched bone to access the temporal lobe behind it. From here we'll be able to make the necessary incisions to begin mounting the interface and, with any luck… we will be able to— map, miss Amagi's brainwaves with great accuracy." Lifting his brows up and smiling after those whispery words, Gregor has the saw spinning as he brings it down towards the paralyzed Noriko's brow.
Then— stops.
Gregor's eyes are wide and focused somewhere other than his patient, which never happens. Hissing in a sharp breath, the bone saw is turned off, and Gregor shoots a look to the surgery attendants. "Out, now!" One gloved hand feverishly whips towards them, brandishing the bone saw. "Get out of my lab! Out!"
Fits of psychosis like this isn't something Gregor is prone to, but the doctors were warned none the less that something may happen. Their instructions that they were given in such circumstances match their actions, they comply. Startled and clearly shaken by Gregor's violent mood swing, the surgery aids begin to file out of the operating room.
In the moments where shuffling footsteps and whispers seem to drown everything else out, Dmitri Gregor's blue eyes settle down to Bao-Wei Cong's exposed forearm beneath his gloves, where pale skin has crusted over with ice so cold its radiating a chill vapor from it.
When Gregor's eyes meet Bao-Wei's, his look wordlessly explains I see what you did there.
The reactions are nearly simultaneous. Gregor stops, flexes his authority- leaving Bao-Wei to follow that previous course of his gaze down. It is even more rare that Cong can feel his heartbeat- thought currently, he does not know if it is fear, or elation. He lets go of Noriko as the attendants depart, letting his uncertainty shine when he puts his eyes back onto the other scientist.
Jaw tight, he says nothing. One hand removes the offending glove from his other. The raw wounds that cover his forelimbs have closed over, with the blackened traits so much a variable of frostbite.
Noriko lets out a very audible sigh of relief as Gregor's attention is takena way from her skull and the bonesaw. Her eyes closing for a moment, before they reopen to watch the two doctor's. Unsure of what will become of her right now, but hoping that she'll just be the forgotton patient and they can forget about the whole business of cutting into her brain.
"You did," Gregor hisses, dropping the bone saw onto a tray with a clunk, his brows furrowed as he steps forward towards Doctor Cong. "What did you do— how did you do it?" Wheezing noisily as he closes in on Bao-Wei, Gregor's blue eyes are wide behind his glasses. "What batch did you use, what— what results have you been having? Why aren't you logging this?" Eyes wide and practically beaming with anticipation, Gregor casts a wary look to Noriko briefly, then settles his attention back on Bao-Wei.
"You've… experimented on— yourself. Ruthlessly efficient, I sympathize…" and he would, after all. Gregor is a man who took science into his own hands to perfect a design for his superiors, once. Gregor's results were equally as gruesome and equally as tantalizing.
Bao-Wei does not betray the sensitive information so freely. He seems pained, if not by his desperation in doing such a thing- then by the aches, the physical pains. Ever since he cut himself moments ago, it has been getting progressively worse, the dull, cold throbbing climbing up his arms. He struggles to ignore it at this point, watching Gregor closely, suspiciously. His hand, displayed in front of him, crisps paler as it gets into the fresher air outside the glove.
"It was my niece. She is the one that I brought, in that stasis. The research I made back then- I hadn't used it all, by the time Harper-" When Cong says the name, his lungs rattle strangely, nostrils flaring, eyes venomous. "-came, I was not finished with it- I knew that I just needed more time with the old- I knew it was close- but-"
His hand balls into a fist. Frostbitten flesh cracks, splits along his wide knuckles. Cong's voice wanders between subtly excited and tentative, mismatched eyes darting from the other man, to his limb. "I do not know if- if this is a prelude… or if this is the beginning of the end…"
Truthfully, he sounds most curious about this question.
Noriko's attention is put towards the bonesaw that is on the table, cursing the paralytic that is running through her. Her mind struggling to get her body to do what it is told, to sit and grab the bonesaw and then hack and slash at everyone in the room. Hoping that Cong will provide enough of a distraction to let her put her plan into effect, eyes narrowing.
"You bastard," Gregor hisses, stalking towards Bao-Wei and greedily holding out his hands towards him, "let me— see it." Breath wheezing in the doctor's lungs, Gregor looks up to Bao-Wei and then down to the freezing arm, blue eyes wide and intent in their examinations of what little he can see in stolen glimpses. "Show me," Gregor insists, rubber-gloved fingers curling greedily towards the arm.
But for all Gregor's single-minded focus, there's something at work here in the laboratory other than simple misdeeds and secret research. No, there is something going on inside of Noriko Amagi's mind, something in her bloodstream. She was supposed to be unconscious by now, sedated, not just paralyzed. Maybe that's why they didn't give her a dose of negation innoculation last night, to not conflict with the sedatives.
Unfortunately, it also means she can feel the moisture in the air, clinging like the sweat does to her skin.
It's not much, but it's something.
Like one brother to another, Bao-Wei lifts the totally affected arm out of the way of Gregor's grabbing hands. He may now be an experiment, but he still appreciates the boundaries of personal space. If he has to, he'll even resort to nudging the smaller man away from him. Features bent into a defensive glare, the Chinese man prepares to defend himself from flung words.
"Do not touch me, or I will put this hand down your throat." Then you'll get a good look at it, you little weasel. The next breath to exhale from Cong's lungs billows as it hits the warm air, a plume of chill air blowing from the holes of his nose and mouth. It only does this once- which serves to somewhat unsettle Cong, the big man pausing to consider the state of his organs.
Noriko's eyes widen when she realizes that she can feel the water around her. It isn't much, but it is a start. Her eyes go to Gregor and she concentrates on a need for stealth, her power still recovering and she doesn't want to play her hand just yet. Instead, she slowly begins to gather the water in Gregor's veins in his stomach, intent on making a nice mess when her chance to strike comes, working to ensure that Gregor notices nothing wrong, hopefully.
The discomfort of what Noriko is doing goes unnoticed, dismissed as symptomatic of any number of other minor health issues Gregor suffers on a daily basis. Let alone his anxiety eating him away right now. "You're going to show me or I am going to— tell Doctor Sheridan. Or perhaps— Central." Both of Gregor's brows rise at that blackmailed threat. At the moment all the sniveling, wheezing surgeon wants is to see the active fruits of Bao-Wei's labor and dissect the notion with the scalpel of his mind.
One hand unconsciously moves to cover Gregor's stomach, the discomfort their burbling like a gas bubble. "How long have you been exhibiting symptoms?" Always the scientist.
Though the threat of central strikes him, and it is apparent, he still manages to scoff loudly. "Sheridan? I am quaking in my shoes, I swear on my life." Reluctantly, Cong prepares to hold his arm out. "Do not touch me." He remarks a second time, a reason being there: "I do not know if contact is safe."
"Monday morning. I am not failing to keep logs. Obviously, if I die, I will not be able to tell anyone a damned thing if I did not."
Gregor should really watch what he eats.
At least, that is what may go through his head seconds after Noriko unleashes her plan, the water quickly disappating from view, as she hopes that they won't connect it with her. Gregor on the other hand, is suddenly missing a lot of the skin that usually keeps things on the inside… on the inside. Bao is sprayed with blood and other matter as Gregor's intestine's are suddenly falling to the floor, with other things that Gregor might not want people to see rather visible. Like the bottoms of his lungs and ribcage.
The noise Gregor emits is somewhere between an animalistic howl and a yelp of surprise more so than anything. Blood explodes in a fine mist from the bowel eruption and the expulsion of his entrails from his abdomen. Water vapor drifts with the blood and frosts across Bao-Wei's skin, giving a cold dappling of crimson to pale flesh. Dropping to his knees in the evisceration, Gregor lets out a hitched, hissing breath followed by the sound of someone eating soup noisily.
Bloodied jaws clenched together, Gregor is spooling his intestines back up into his abdomen with shaky hands, wide blue eyes staring down and the blood all over the floor. Perhaps more grotesque is that his body is accepting the lengths of mottled bowels back in, some portions of them actually slithering back inside of his abdominal cavity.
Choking wetly, Gregor slouches to his side and curls his fingers around a length of intestinal track as he forces it up inside of his body like stuffing into a turkey. "Stop her!" the surgeon hisses while trying to play Humpty Dumpty with his entrails.
Instinct takes over the moment that Dmitri pops open. Bao-Wei lifts his frostbitten, crusted arm to block his face from the splash of blood, only to peer past his wrist to watch the ensuing situation. "Mm. I think you may have more pressing problems than my note taking abilites." Doctor Cong amends the conversation with this, casting a look over the red tint that has clung to the cracking skin of his arm. Now that- that is far more interesting than watching Gregor literally pull himself back together.
The hissing command brings Bao-Wei back to the present. He slides his gaze across the operating room, narrowed at Noriko still tied to the gurney. He wastes no time in grabbing a syringe from the prep ptable with his good hand, stalking closer to where the girl is.
Noriko can feel the moisture in the air until Cong descends upon her presence there; technically, there is something of water still around her, but it draws away rather than towards. By the time that the larger doctor is right beside her, it looks as if his newfound pallor has been layered in a crinkling layer of thin frost. He does not seem to notice.
Noriko's mind is racing, she can't run away from Bao and for now, she doesn't deal with him. Figuring that with his new frozen abilities, he probably doesn't have much liquid water left in him to exploit, so instead, she keeps her focus on Gregor, who might find his ability to stuff his instantines back in slightly hampered as small pops are heard while Noriko makes the water rush out from sections of it, sometimes severing and other times just shredding. He may want to consider some Pepto-Bismol.
Blood is expelled in husky, heavy breaths from Gregor's mouth and nose. "No, no, no…" he gurgles, "too much." One arm wrapped around his midsection, Gregor boosts himsefl up to slippery feet that slide in his own expulsions, ragged trails of shredded flesh at his stomach that dangles limp between his fingers. Scrambling footsteps draw Gregor away, even as one hand slams on a panic button, putting the facility on alert as he stumbles and slips across the floor towards where he can see one of the horrified surgery assistants lingering through a doorway.
"Help," Gregor pathetically whines, staggering towards them only in enough time to gain their confidence. Once he's within arm's reach, Gregor reaches out and grasps the young surgeon by the throat, slams him into a wall and then drags him towards a closet, screaming in both horror and pain, shoes squeaking on the tile.
Gregor needs replacement parts.
Gregor left to his own way of things, Doctor Cong has the field when it comes to sticking Noriko in the arm with the heavy sedative. It's a rather crude effort, but it gets done; he does brush parts of his hands over her arm, and at the moment it feels like drawing a piece of frozen metal across flesh. It doesn't harm her, and for a moment feels as if she may stick to him. This will be the last thing she feels.
The last thing that she will see before the drug kicks in is a second plume of icy air.