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GW - newtypes fic - scene 3
I feel like it's kinda filler for now... Is it boring to anyone else? ~___~ I think the description is lacking in some parts but i'm not sure where. ~__~ i have two other parts ready (tho really one of them is just the reworked 1+5 ficled i wrote a few months back) but there's something a little wrong with the second one, so i'll edit first and post later.
Previous
"Sorry, she's in a meeting with ministry officials."
Wufei frowned at Une's secretary, displeased. They'd gotten to work twenty minutes early, and she was already working? Damn. He could have slowed down and bought himself a coffee. "Which ministry?"
"Ah, Health."
Heero and Wufei exchanged a mildly puzzled look. There were probably things the Preventers could do for such a ministry, but none that were immediately obvious. The Preventers were first and foremost a peacekeeping organization.
"All right. We need to see her sometime today. It needn't be very long, fifteen minutes at most." Hopefully, with limited time to argue, Une would choose not to.
The neat little man behind his desk nodded like he heard that excuse all day and never believed it, and made a note in a book. "Of course. I'll page you when Director Une is available to see you. It might not be today, though -- how about I call you at six PM to reschedule if she couldn't fit you in today?"
Wufei sighed and nodded his assent. That was the best they would get. "Thank you."
They turned away and went back to the elevator. Wufei could see Heero watching him push the button for the office floor; he might have put more strength than necessary in it.
"Coffee?"
"You need to ask," Wufei groaned. Two weeks of stress -- how to survive the jungle, the enemies, and the people he pretended to work with; how to fulfill his mission and escape; and then that mess with trying to prove it didn't mean Maxwell or Barton were involved -- on not enough sleep were starting to take their toll.
He really, really wanted his coffee. Needed it. Craved it.
That was his excuse as to why he didn't notice Sally swoop down on him until he had the note demanding he report to the infirmary under his nose, blocking his view on the perfect inky blackness inside his plastic cup. The note was wrinkled from Wufei stuffing it in the pocket of his to-be-laundered disguise jacket and still had a little piece of adhesive tape at the top.
"Hi, Wufei," she said brightly. "I see you're not terribly busy this morning."
Wufei drew himself up. She still was a little taller than he was, curse her. "As a matter of fact--"
"We're waiting on Une to get free," Heero said, and took Wufei's betrayed glare with placid neutrality.
Sally gave the two of them a pleased smile. "And I have it on good authority that they'll be at it for a few hours at the very least. Great! I'm kidnapping you."
"We have reports to submit--"
"Heero can do that, can't you, Heero?"
"No problem," the traitor agreed easily.
"Yuy, damn it," Wufei hissed at him.
Heero looked at him as if he had no clue what he'd done wrong. Wufei might almost have believed it -- hah, right. Heero wasn't that socially clueless, he was just good at pretending he was. Wasn't he?
"Hm?"
"... Whatever." Wufei drained his cup and threw it in the wastebasket. "Let's get this over with."
He followed Sally up the stairs to the second floor. They crossed a glass-walled corridor showing a half-dozen technicians in masks and gloves fiddling with what Wufei presumed were some kind of bio-weapons, and a door labeled "forensics", before reaching the infirmary proper. Wufei had expected her to lead him to the usual consultation room, but she directed him all the way to the back and a discreet door.
"Sally?"
"Oh, it's Gail's turn to play doctor on call today, so he gets the front room." Smiling, she pushed the door open and let him in. "I hold another first-aid class at ten."
That room was smaller, without any windows; the equipment looked a little more dented as well, but he doubted Sally would still use it if the damage was more than cosmetic.
"You know, it would be nice if next time you came to me before you gave everyone in the building some exotic jungle disease."
"I don't have any jungle diseases," Wufei grouched. "You formed the medic with the extraction team yourself, can't you trust his judgment a little?"
"Oh, but I do," Sally replied pleasantly. "I just trust my equipment more than his."
Wufei gave her an unconvinced look; nevertheless, he took off his shirt, sat on the examination table, and allowed her to feel him up for swollen ganglions, check his pupils, wrap a blood pressure cuff around his biceps, and prick him with a syringe. Her readings taken, she left him on the table to rest with electrodes stuck to his temples and chest, fiddling with her centrifuge and her microscope, which, he admitted, looked significantly more modern than the medic's.
"So how much sleep have you been getting recently?"
Wufei sighed and reclined on the table. It was easier to talk to her when she had her back to him and seemed so neutral and unconcerned, when all he could see was the white lab coat and not the worried, compassionate eyes. "About four to five hours a day for the last couple of weeks or so."
"Hm. I don't need to tell you how to use your in-between-missions time, right?"
He groaned. "Ancestors, no. It's not like I like being sleep-deprived."
Sally laughed lightly. "I'll give you some pills for that. Anything else? Soreness, headaches, dizziness...?"
"Nothing worth mentioning." She looked at him; he added reluctantly, "A couple of fatigue headaches, nothing bad..."
"Hm. Pretty appropriate, in your state. Well, you know your own body," she added, distracted by beeping machinery. "Warn me if you notice any symptoms."
Wufei grunted an acknowledgement and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to spit on an occasion to rest his mind and body. He would probably fall asleep if he didn't watch it, though.
"What did you read about that newtype thing?" he asked, eyes still closed.
He could hear soft little clinks as Sally worked on the blood samples. "That's right, you were incommunicado when the news broke. What do you know so far?"
"There's a new gene, it is found mostly on people whose families have been Colonists for a few generations..." His voice went a little ironic, "And it enables them to predict symbols on cards, which is obviously something people should riot about."
Sally made a rude noise under her breath. "It's not 'a new gene,' it's a combination of genes that just didn't express themselves on Earth. A small percentage of people on Earth has the same markers. They were previously assumed to be redundant or inactive information. Being conceived and living in space apparently only changes their concentration, expression and transmission -- ah, I have scientific journals, maybe you'll like looking at them."
Wufei made a little 'listening' noise. "I might take you up on it. Not surprising that the newspapers would dumb it down, though."
"That, and there are several counter-studies, and of course they're not done yet and none of them agree." Sally chuckled ruefully. "There are some really fascinating things if you hunt down the more detailed reports, though. For example, some people could guess the card all the time, even chosen by a machine, but some could only guess it right when the person supervising the test looked at it first."
Wufei opened an eye. "... That is interesting. The implications alone -- it's not the same talent at all."
Sally threw him a quick grin over her shoulder. "It has a slightly different combination of gene sequences, too. They're still cataloguing all the possible permutations and trying to tie them to specific talents. It's hard to find enough test subjects for the rarest, too, and there are some potential gifts that are difficult to quantify."
"Like?"
"Charisma, for one. It's something that people have spent centuries trying to define. How do you tell when it's perfectly natural and unique to the person, and when it's boosted by something in their genes?"
Wufei stretched his legs comfortably and smiled. Mmh, academic debate. Now that was a lot better to think about than vendettas and vigilantism by old friends. "You could argue that's the definition of natural charisma, too. Physical appearance and tone of voice are largely defined by genetics, and I suspect even someone who has a newtype gift for it wouldn't go far if their personality was too horrid to support it. It's not a brainwashing kind of ability, is it?"
Sally's back hunched a little, her tone of voice a little more somber. "Not as far as we can tell. But we don't have a wide enough research pool to test for that one. And, of course, the very idea that they could be robbed of their free will and made to unconditionally adore someone is already starting to panic people."
Wufei frowned. "And even if researchers never find someone like that, it still won't be enough to prove that they don't exist somewhere anyway."
"Yes, exactly. It's easy enough to prove that something like that exists, you just have to find it, but that it doesn't..."
They lapsed into silence, Sally thoroughly testing his blood, Wufei brooding over the propensity of the human race to scare itself silly and turn on itself over unproven conjectures.
"... Anyway... You might find it amusing, but there was a subject who got every single answer wrong. How statistically probable is that?"
"About as much as getting them all right," Wufei answered with an amused snort.
"Which means he'd actually be pretty high-level, because very few of them had a success rate over ninety percent. And by very few I mean perhaps a dozen people at most. It's a relief, isn't it?"
Wufei grunted his assent. "Good to know no one's perfect. ... Will this be done soon?" He tapped the electrodes.
"Oh, no, I need a full reading. I'd say at least two hours."
"That long? I have things to do..."
"If it's research for your new case, Heero can do it. And if it's paperwork for the old one, it can wait," she said firmly.
Wufei frowned, suspicious. "Why do you need a full brain and body reading anyway? I understand a short EEG to make sure the lack of sleep isn't causing problems in my brain..."
Sally chuckled as she powered down the instruments she'd been using. "Don't you trust me?"
Ah, so that was it. "Of course I trust you." Wufei didn't bother hiding his cynicism. "I trust you to make bogus excuses to make sure I take a nap today, amongst other things."
They stared at each other for a few seconds, Wufei with his eyes narrowed in wariness, Sally with a casual and innocent expression that didn't suit her much; and then she laughed again, a little chagrined. "I really would appreciate a full reading..."
"Sally."
"... For comparison purposes."
Wufei scowled. "So it doesn't need to be now."
"No, but it's one of the rare times of the year I can catch you where you're not too busy to afford it. I'll come get you when I get the result for the blood tests, how about that?"
Wufei glared at her.
"Thank you, Wufei." And with a last smile and a friendly wave, she was gone, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
Wufei opened his mouth to protest, but of course she would pretend not to have heard him. With an irritated huff, he lay back down on the padded table.
Meddlesome woman. At least she could have brought him to one of the rooms that had actual beds. She had better wake him up in two hours tops; he didn't want to waste all morning. With some luck, Une would see him during lunch, and it wouldn't hurt to have a little more dirt on Kamenov to convince her with.
Next.
Previous
"Sorry, she's in a meeting with ministry officials."
Wufei frowned at Une's secretary, displeased. They'd gotten to work twenty minutes early, and she was already working? Damn. He could have slowed down and bought himself a coffee. "Which ministry?"
"Ah, Health."
Heero and Wufei exchanged a mildly puzzled look. There were probably things the Preventers could do for such a ministry, but none that were immediately obvious. The Preventers were first and foremost a peacekeeping organization.
"All right. We need to see her sometime today. It needn't be very long, fifteen minutes at most." Hopefully, with limited time to argue, Une would choose not to.
The neat little man behind his desk nodded like he heard that excuse all day and never believed it, and made a note in a book. "Of course. I'll page you when Director Une is available to see you. It might not be today, though -- how about I call you at six PM to reschedule if she couldn't fit you in today?"
Wufei sighed and nodded his assent. That was the best they would get. "Thank you."
They turned away and went back to the elevator. Wufei could see Heero watching him push the button for the office floor; he might have put more strength than necessary in it.
"Coffee?"
"You need to ask," Wufei groaned. Two weeks of stress -- how to survive the jungle, the enemies, and the people he pretended to work with; how to fulfill his mission and escape; and then that mess with trying to prove it didn't mean Maxwell or Barton were involved -- on not enough sleep were starting to take their toll.
He really, really wanted his coffee. Needed it. Craved it.
That was his excuse as to why he didn't notice Sally swoop down on him until he had the note demanding he report to the infirmary under his nose, blocking his view on the perfect inky blackness inside his plastic cup. The note was wrinkled from Wufei stuffing it in the pocket of his to-be-laundered disguise jacket and still had a little piece of adhesive tape at the top.
"Hi, Wufei," she said brightly. "I see you're not terribly busy this morning."
Wufei drew himself up. She still was a little taller than he was, curse her. "As a matter of fact--"
"We're waiting on Une to get free," Heero said, and took Wufei's betrayed glare with placid neutrality.
Sally gave the two of them a pleased smile. "And I have it on good authority that they'll be at it for a few hours at the very least. Great! I'm kidnapping you."
"We have reports to submit--"
"Heero can do that, can't you, Heero?"
"No problem," the traitor agreed easily.
"Yuy, damn it," Wufei hissed at him.
Heero looked at him as if he had no clue what he'd done wrong. Wufei might almost have believed it -- hah, right. Heero wasn't that socially clueless, he was just good at pretending he was. Wasn't he?
"Hm?"
"... Whatever." Wufei drained his cup and threw it in the wastebasket. "Let's get this over with."
He followed Sally up the stairs to the second floor. They crossed a glass-walled corridor showing a half-dozen technicians in masks and gloves fiddling with what Wufei presumed were some kind of bio-weapons, and a door labeled "forensics", before reaching the infirmary proper. Wufei had expected her to lead him to the usual consultation room, but she directed him all the way to the back and a discreet door.
"Sally?"
"Oh, it's Gail's turn to play doctor on call today, so he gets the front room." Smiling, she pushed the door open and let him in. "I hold another first-aid class at ten."
That room was smaller, without any windows; the equipment looked a little more dented as well, but he doubted Sally would still use it if the damage was more than cosmetic.
"You know, it would be nice if next time you came to me before you gave everyone in the building some exotic jungle disease."
"I don't have any jungle diseases," Wufei grouched. "You formed the medic with the extraction team yourself, can't you trust his judgment a little?"
"Oh, but I do," Sally replied pleasantly. "I just trust my equipment more than his."
Wufei gave her an unconvinced look; nevertheless, he took off his shirt, sat on the examination table, and allowed her to feel him up for swollen ganglions, check his pupils, wrap a blood pressure cuff around his biceps, and prick him with a syringe. Her readings taken, she left him on the table to rest with electrodes stuck to his temples and chest, fiddling with her centrifuge and her microscope, which, he admitted, looked significantly more modern than the medic's.
"So how much sleep have you been getting recently?"
Wufei sighed and reclined on the table. It was easier to talk to her when she had her back to him and seemed so neutral and unconcerned, when all he could see was the white lab coat and not the worried, compassionate eyes. "About four to five hours a day for the last couple of weeks or so."
"Hm. I don't need to tell you how to use your in-between-missions time, right?"
He groaned. "Ancestors, no. It's not like I like being sleep-deprived."
Sally laughed lightly. "I'll give you some pills for that. Anything else? Soreness, headaches, dizziness...?"
"Nothing worth mentioning." She looked at him; he added reluctantly, "A couple of fatigue headaches, nothing bad..."
"Hm. Pretty appropriate, in your state. Well, you know your own body," she added, distracted by beeping machinery. "Warn me if you notice any symptoms."
Wufei grunted an acknowledgement and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to spit on an occasion to rest his mind and body. He would probably fall asleep if he didn't watch it, though.
"What did you read about that newtype thing?" he asked, eyes still closed.
He could hear soft little clinks as Sally worked on the blood samples. "That's right, you were incommunicado when the news broke. What do you know so far?"
"There's a new gene, it is found mostly on people whose families have been Colonists for a few generations..." His voice went a little ironic, "And it enables them to predict symbols on cards, which is obviously something people should riot about."
Sally made a rude noise under her breath. "It's not 'a new gene,' it's a combination of genes that just didn't express themselves on Earth. A small percentage of people on Earth has the same markers. They were previously assumed to be redundant or inactive information. Being conceived and living in space apparently only changes their concentration, expression and transmission -- ah, I have scientific journals, maybe you'll like looking at them."
Wufei made a little 'listening' noise. "I might take you up on it. Not surprising that the newspapers would dumb it down, though."
"That, and there are several counter-studies, and of course they're not done yet and none of them agree." Sally chuckled ruefully. "There are some really fascinating things if you hunt down the more detailed reports, though. For example, some people could guess the card all the time, even chosen by a machine, but some could only guess it right when the person supervising the test looked at it first."
Wufei opened an eye. "... That is interesting. The implications alone -- it's not the same talent at all."
Sally threw him a quick grin over her shoulder. "It has a slightly different combination of gene sequences, too. They're still cataloguing all the possible permutations and trying to tie them to specific talents. It's hard to find enough test subjects for the rarest, too, and there are some potential gifts that are difficult to quantify."
"Like?"
"Charisma, for one. It's something that people have spent centuries trying to define. How do you tell when it's perfectly natural and unique to the person, and when it's boosted by something in their genes?"
Wufei stretched his legs comfortably and smiled. Mmh, academic debate. Now that was a lot better to think about than vendettas and vigilantism by old friends. "You could argue that's the definition of natural charisma, too. Physical appearance and tone of voice are largely defined by genetics, and I suspect even someone who has a newtype gift for it wouldn't go far if their personality was too horrid to support it. It's not a brainwashing kind of ability, is it?"
Sally's back hunched a little, her tone of voice a little more somber. "Not as far as we can tell. But we don't have a wide enough research pool to test for that one. And, of course, the very idea that they could be robbed of their free will and made to unconditionally adore someone is already starting to panic people."
Wufei frowned. "And even if researchers never find someone like that, it still won't be enough to prove that they don't exist somewhere anyway."
"Yes, exactly. It's easy enough to prove that something like that exists, you just have to find it, but that it doesn't..."
They lapsed into silence, Sally thoroughly testing his blood, Wufei brooding over the propensity of the human race to scare itself silly and turn on itself over unproven conjectures.
"... Anyway... You might find it amusing, but there was a subject who got every single answer wrong. How statistically probable is that?"
"About as much as getting them all right," Wufei answered with an amused snort.
"Which means he'd actually be pretty high-level, because very few of them had a success rate over ninety percent. And by very few I mean perhaps a dozen people at most. It's a relief, isn't it?"
Wufei grunted his assent. "Good to know no one's perfect. ... Will this be done soon?" He tapped the electrodes.
"Oh, no, I need a full reading. I'd say at least two hours."
"That long? I have things to do..."
"If it's research for your new case, Heero can do it. And if it's paperwork for the old one, it can wait," she said firmly.
Wufei frowned, suspicious. "Why do you need a full brain and body reading anyway? I understand a short EEG to make sure the lack of sleep isn't causing problems in my brain..."
Sally chuckled as she powered down the instruments she'd been using. "Don't you trust me?"
Ah, so that was it. "Of course I trust you." Wufei didn't bother hiding his cynicism. "I trust you to make bogus excuses to make sure I take a nap today, amongst other things."
They stared at each other for a few seconds, Wufei with his eyes narrowed in wariness, Sally with a casual and innocent expression that didn't suit her much; and then she laughed again, a little chagrined. "I really would appreciate a full reading..."
"Sally."
"... For comparison purposes."
Wufei scowled. "So it doesn't need to be now."
"No, but it's one of the rare times of the year I can catch you where you're not too busy to afford it. I'll come get you when I get the result for the blood tests, how about that?"
Wufei glared at her.
"Thank you, Wufei." And with a last smile and a friendly wave, she was gone, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
Wufei opened his mouth to protest, but of course she would pretend not to have heard him. With an irritated huff, he lay back down on the padded table.
Meddlesome woman. At least she could have brought him to one of the rooms that had actual beds. She had better wake him up in two hours tops; he didn't want to waste all morning. With some luck, Une would see him during lunch, and it wouldn't hurt to have a little more dirt on Kamenov to convince her with.
Next.
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*have the same markers.
It does seem some like filler, though it's nice to expand on the scientific/regular reaction through Sally. And I find it cute that she's tricked Wufei into a nap. XD
Edit: Actually, the sentence is fine either way. By old rules, has is correct. By notion of plurality, have is correct. Either works--yay divided usage!
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That took me a while to puzzle out. Do you mean she informed the medic, or she put him on the team?
Also, I like this sort of filler, it's actually filling and it gives us more information to better understand the world and the situation, while at the same time showing us that the other characters haven't just disappeared into the woodwork, as well as a bit more of Wufei's world and friendships.
Mmh, academic debate.
So full of win XD
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^____^ ♥
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YAY MORE FIC! \o/
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Thank you, lovely~
ALL YOUR FAULT.
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Also, why do I suspect that Sally is using this particular time and tests to see if Wufei has the genetic markers?
Really liked the following passage, there was well imparted info (not just a data dump), intelligence, speculation, possible foreshadowing. Just punched all my buttons. ^___^
"There are some really fascinating things if you hunt down the more detailed reports, though. For example, some people could guess the card all the time, even chosen by a machine, but some could only guess it right when the person supervising the test looked at it first."
Wufei opened an eye. "... That is interesting. The implications alone -- it's not the same talent at all."
Sally threw him a quick grin over her shoulder. "It has a slightly different combination of gene sequences, too. They're still cataloguing all the possible permutations and trying to tie them to specific talents. It's hard to find enough test subjects for the rarest, too, and there are some potential gifts that are difficult to quantify."
"Like?"
"Charisma, for one. It's something that people have spent centuries trying to define. How do you tell when it's perfectly natural and unique to the person, and when it's boosted by something in their genes?"
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oh, would she? Surely not. D;
damn it, i thought it was sneaky.Gah!
More plz? ♥
Re: Gah!
;)
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Plus the whole thing with Heero selling Wufei out to Sally was hilarious! ^o^
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(phony accent) Please Mum, I'd like some more.
A.S.