edge_of_forever | Blood Work [Open]

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Blood Work [Open]

Gaius Baltar is standing in the science labs of the third floor of the Prosperina, eye pressed against the eyepiece lens. This felt so familiar to Gaius; in a way, it was almost disconcerting. What was that phrase that Six liked to use? 'All this has happened before, and all this will happen again', was it? It certainly seemed to be the case now. Mostly, anyway. Instead of being surrounded by thousands of blood samples all in need of testing for Cylon pathogens, he was surrounded by four in need of just simple investigation.

One from him, one from Julien, one from someone he hadn't yet had the opportunity to meet, and one from the Commander.

Only one woman aboard the station had deigned to pay a visit to the science labs, and it had to be her of all people. What Gaius wanted was someone young and pretty like the girls he slept with on Caprica. Someone who would think he was all charm and intelligence. Someone who thought he was utterly irresistible.

And the Commander it seemed, had developed an immunity to his charms. In fact, she didn't seem to like him at all. And that alone Gaius couldn't stand; he didn't like the thought of anyone disliking him. Even Shepard.

"Cubit for your thoughts, Gaius." Gaius jerks up quite suddenly to find Six sitting there on the countertop next to him. She's quite lovely, in that red dress that he really loved. The one that seemed to hug every inch of her body, leaving very little to the imagination.

"When did you get here?" he asks her, though it comes out as more of a demand than a question.

"Just a second ago." Six smiles. "Are you going to answer my question?"

Gaius runs a hand over his sweatshirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. He'd feel more comfortable in a suit -- or if that weren't possible, a lab coat would probably do. But unfortunately, the ship had not seen it fit to outfit them appropriately.

Or at least not him. The rest of the space station's denizens could feel just at home in this kind of clothing, for all he knew.

"I was thinking about women," he says, finally. "The only one I've seen since I've cooped myself up in this lab is Shepard and frankly, she left a great deal to be desired." He peers through the eyepiece again and frowns down at a sample of her bloodwork. It sits on a microscope slide, bound to the stage with a set of stage clips.

Six pushes herself out the counter and steps towards him. She leans over him, breasts pressed against his back. Gaius briefly recalls the last time the two of them fooled around in a science lab, and remembers Kara Thrace walking in right in the middle of it.

Any desire he might have felt was killed with that very thought.

"Learn anything new about women by examining their blood?" she asks, her lips so close to his ear that she can feel the warmth of her breath there on his lobe.

"Abnormalities," he answers, somehow managing to squelch his newly-resurrected desire, however barely. "But I've seen a lot of abnormalities from the samples I've taken thusfar. I'll need more samples before I can draw any definitive conclusions."

He's both thankful and remorseful when Six decides to pull away a second later. "Well, then," she says. "I'll leave you to your work."

And in a blink of an eye, Six is gone again, leaving Gaius standing there, wishing very much that he was in some other place -- some private place, rather -- alone and with Six.

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The whiir of the door alerts him to the woman's presence even before Six has the opportunity to do so. He looks up, forces a smile, then looks down at his notes, stacking them together in the neatest stack he can manage. He wishes that Gaeta were here to assist; he'd always been good at managing his written research when they worked on the Cylon Detector together.

But if Gaeta were here, he'd probably want to wring his neck along with the rest of them.

He places the stacked notes on the table in their neat pile, then looks up again. "Um," Gaius says, somewhat unsteadily. He glances in Six's direction, but she offers nothing more than a smile. "Hello." He forces a smile. "Are you here to donate, or just inquire about our findings?" So far, he had two visitors today, and neither one of them seemed particularly inclined to offer their blood to the cause.

He's not going to get his hopes up with this one.

“I was here to inquire,” she wasn’t totally certain about the process they had for gathering blood. Her imagination tended to run a bit wild with things like that. After a moment studying him she decided that the research must not be going well, “I take it things are not going as planned?”

She closed the gap between the door and the table with a few swift movements. Her gaze moved from the scientist to the papers he was moving about the desk. So many notes, were all of them really relevant? She never favored science or alchemy, she understood it well enough and used what had been useful to her day to day but, in a general sense, she left the alchemy to the alchemists.

“What is the process for all of…” a quick motion about the table “… well, this?”

"I can't think of a time in my recent life where things have gone smoothly," he says, straightening. He smooths out his sweatshirt, wishing all the while that he could exchange it for a more appropriate lab coat. He just couldn't make himself feel comfortable in this clothing. It reminded him too much of his own childhood.

"Feeling sorry for yourself, Gaius?" comes a sultry voice from behind him.

"I'm not," he says deliberately, so Six can be certain he's talking to her. "...sure how to explain this," he supplies. "Um, well. The hope is that eventually, I'll be able to build a mass spectrometer, which uses electrica charge and mass ratio to separate atoms. If a charged particle is moving within a magnetic field, it experiences a force perpendicular to its motion, and tends to follow a spiral pattern." The whole time Gaius is explaining this, he uses his hands to express ideas. His hands form a right angle when he utters the word 'perpenddicular'; a finger spins as he says the word 'spiral'.

"The radius of curvature -- of how tightly wound those spirals are -- of the trajectory is related directly to the charge-to-mass ratio of the particle."

"That's not what she's looking for. You need to pay attention to people when they speak to you."

Gaius stops and looks at her. Arthuria, not Six, who is now standing beside him. "Look," she repeats.

And he does. And realizes in that moment -- looking over at her -- that that was not the explanation she was looking for; she had no interest in his notes. She wanted to know about the blood-taking process.

"Oh," he breathes, half to Six, half to Arturia. "It's really quite simple, actually." He lifts the small collection device from a metal case. "Um, I take a sample of blood using this device. It's a prick in the arm, right about here." He presses two fingers against the inner side of his elbow. "It only takes a few seconds. Then once I've done that, I analyze the samples for any anomolies with the very moderate equipment we have on hand."

Which, judging from the tone of his voice and his mistaken explanation a few minutes before, was not up to par.

"You should introduce yourself," Six encourages, and Gaius complies.

"Dr. Gaius Baltar," he says, extending an arm out to shake hers. "Though I'm sure you knew that." He smiles.

That was most certainly not what the woman was looking for. It was clear from the glossed over look on Arturia’s face that every word coming from this man’s mouth was going right over her head. Something about smashing particles and magnetic algorithms and building a spinning meter thing… The man may have well been speaking French for how well she was understanding this.

She actually wondered briefly if he was even using real words.

The pacing of his words was also strange, she felt like the words weren’t quite directed at her. It was the strange pauses, subtle but something she had definitely picked up on. Maybe he was a bit eccentric? Merlin tended to go off on tangents the girl rarely understood. Perhaps this man was his world’s Merlin?

“I do not fancy being stabbed or poked for my blood,” which wasn’t quite true. She didn’t trust anyone with her blood after what happened back in Camelot. Blood was a powerful catalyst and she didn’t want to give anyone that power over her again, regardless of if magic existed here or not and really, how could she be totally sure? Was magic not just science by another name?

“Arturia Pendragon,” she gave his hand a firm shake and a nod of her head. She then rested a hand on her hip, touching the back of her neck lightly. Actually, she hadn’t known that was his name. She’d glanced over the message sitting in her inbox but she hadn’t remembered the sender’s name.

Her eyes went to the various tools on the table, “Have you found anything as of yet?” There was a momentary pause before she added, “Ah, smaller words, please. I don’t think I understood two words of what you were saying” She made a small motion with her hands to indicate shorter word length. She wasn’t a stupid woman but when it came to modern science, she was definitely in the dark.

"These people don't know you," Six says, pressing a hand on his shoulder. Gaius rolls his shoulder back, trying to shrug her hand off, but with little success. "They have no reason to love you, though they have no reason to hate you, either."

Gaius inhales at this, trying his best not to look at her.

"They don't know Gaius Baltar the genius. You don't have your reputation here to prop you up. You'll have to earn their trust. You'll have to win their hearts and minds."

He swallows.

"Explain it to her," she urges. And Gaius opens his mouth to speak, but before he can press the words forward, Six interrupts him: "The way you'd talk to a student after a lecture."

He opens his mouth to speak a second time.

"A male student," Six emphasizes.

"I, um," Gaius stammers. "Well, essentially, comparing the samples we had on hand, we were able to note some curious anomalies that were present in every sample collected. What exactly this anomaly might have done to us or what it means, we're not entirely sure."

He shifts nervously where he stands. "And, well," he says, scratching at the elbow of one of his arms. "That'll probably take more time. More research. More sampling."

He turns around to face the counter. "If you're curious, I could show you," he says. "How the process works, I'd be happy to show you." He glances over his shoulder at her. "The blood collecting process, I mean."

He was definitely an odd man, Arturia was patient as the man decided what he wanted to say, or at least that’s what she assumed was going on. “How do you compare samples? Don’t they all look the same?”

She reached across the table to touch one of the sample vials in the clear container that held them. From where she was standing it looked like regular blood, a dark burgundy wine color and slightly viscous. It looked like any other blood she’d seen, nothing special save for it being collected in a little glass vial. She nimbly plucked one of the tubes from the small plastic shelving holding it to take a closer look.

She perked up at the mention of learning how the process worked. Her eyes moved from the vial back to Gaius, the girl was definitely curious how he got the blood into the little vials so neatly. It didn't even look like any of the blood had stained the sticker on the outside. Certainly it mustn’t be with a blade. “I would be interested in that, actually. I’m curious how you get the blood into these little vials”

She shook the vial for emphasis. Luckily, the woman also had a steady hand so there was little fear of her dropping it. Well, she had no doubts anyway.

Gaius presses his lips together and fights the urge to pluck the vial from the woman's hand to return it back where it belongs.

"At a glance, they all look the same, mostly," he says, tapping a vial of amber blood from the set -- the one vial visibly different from the rest. "But when you examine them closely, you can see differences that you wouldn't have been able to detect before."

A beat, as Gaius thinks of how best to explain this to someone with no real knowledge of bloodwork.

"Have you ever looked up at a blade of glass up close?" he asks. "We're so used to seeing grass; it's virtually everywhere and one blade doesn't really look much different from the other. But it's only after observing it close up that you find patterns there. Differences you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. The angle the culm bends at the collar when it grows out of its sheath; the veins drawn across the face of the blade. Blood is very much like that. And yet different."

It's strange, the way he talks about it; Gaius Baltar certainly looks like a man who'd be more comfortable inside a laboratory than he would outdoors, but talks about plants in such precise terms that it's difficult to imagine that he hasn't spent at least some part of his life surrounded by it.

Gaius reaches for a set of gloves and a small square of gauze. The gloves are tugged on almost immediately; the gauze, on the other hand, is left on the counter for now.

"This is the collector," he says, flipping the latches of a metal box. When opened, he carefully removes the blood collector. Attached at the bottom of it is a vial not much unlike the one Arturia holds in her hand. It appears that the collector captures the blood and deposits it directly into the vial.

Gaius rolls up his sleeve, then presses the collector to the inside of his elbow. There's a small, wet sound as the device disinfects the area with alcohol. A half-second later, a mechanical sound joins it as a needle punctures his arm.

The vial on the collector quickly fills with blood, and Gaius pulls it away. Gaius sets the collector aside on the counter and reaches for the gauze. He presses it against the small puncture mark on his arm, hoping to quell the flow of blood.

"That's all there is to it, really."

He glances over at Six. And for the first time in what feels like an eternity, she doesn't look displeased.

Arturia focused on the doctor as he spoke of grass in comparison with blood. When his speech moved back to the blood her gazed moved back to the vial in her hand. Blood was blood to her but he much have a way to look at it from a different angle. She briefly searches the table while Gaius is pulling the collection device from the box it’s been housed in. Her focus catches on the microscope with the slide of blood.

That must be it.

She carefully placed the vial down on a pile of notes before refocusing on the doctor as he rolls up his sleeve and the sound of the disinfectant catches her attention. She studied the device carefully as the man pulled blood from his arm, resisting the urge to touch the machine. Merlin had a case of endless frustration whenever she was in his tower. Being a tactile person, she felt the need to touch everything he was working on and occasionally that ended in his more fragile experiments coming to an unfortunate and abrupt end.

“Such a tiny blade and to pull the blood out of your arm…” speaking in terms of weapons, had the device been larger, it would have been a terrifying weapon. Thankfully, it appeared this little thing was for research purposes.

A few footsteps around the table brought her to the microscope where she lightly touched the eye piece with the tips of her fingers, “And you test the samples here?”

Gaius glances at the girl warily when she compares the collection device to a weapon.

"I view the samples there," he corrects gently. "Eventually, I'd like to do some testing, to see if my observations hold true meaning. The mass spectrometer -- the device I mentioned earlier -- should help me do that."

He tosses the square of gauze in the trash, then reaches for the collection device; the vial is retrieved and capped; a label is pressed on, and he scribbles some identifying markings on it.

"I built one before, but I had far more resources at my disposal then." While their captors sought it fit to provide them with the basic essentials, they did not seem particularly interested in equipped them with advanced testing equipment. "It'll allow me to confirm a few hypotheses I have about the anomalies present across all the samples I've collected thusfar."

“View them…” Ah, of course. She looked the eye piece carefully; it looked like a strange spyglass upon closer inspection. “So this is a spyglass to enhance the sample you’re viewing? Will that help you build your device for testing?”

Arturia was quite sure the lot of them came from places that had more resources at their disposal. At present, the most useful thing on the station that she had found was the lamp she’d taken apart. The winner of the least useful object, of course, went to the food machine. The apparatus apparently took to abuse more than polite commands as hitting it yielded better food options. Astonishingly enough.

She rested both hands on the microscope, curious about the anomalies he had found, “What sorts of anomalies have you found in the blood?” This brought her back to the thought that they’d been infected with something upon their arrival. Were they all sick? Concern lightly etched into her features. “What is your hypothesis?”

"It helped to detect that the anomaly was present, but it won't be as useful with what I want to do next."

Gaius fights the urge somehow, to tell her to be careful, or to the move the microscope away. Their supplies were limited at best, and the last thing he wanted was any of their meager equipment to be inadvertently damaged.

"I'm not sure exactly what they are, or what they do. The mass specrometer would allow us to detect the presence of various elements and their abundances. Once we know its basic composition, we should be able to better pinpoint what its true purpose is."

Gaius runs a hand through his hair at her next question. "My hypothesis is rather obvious, actually. That whatever is in our bloodstream has dampened the powers of those who have abilities that in my world would be considered supernatural."

He presses his lips together nervously. Six presses a hand on his shoulder and leans in. "You should ask her."

Gaius turns to look at. "Ask her?" he says in low tones. And in the instant the words leave his lips, he realizes exactly what Six was telling him.

"As for," he says louder now,, trying to cover up his little dialogue with Six. "As for you, would you be one of those people?" he asks. "A person with special powers?"

“Supernatural?” she raises an eyebrow at his phrasing, unsure of what, exactly, he’s referencing. She cocks her head to the side as the man turns to look at, well, something? At what she’s not entirely sure. Arturia’s opinion of him as a bit of an eccentric solidified. Maybe most scientists were a little off in the head?

She shook her head, not quite understanding what he meant. Then it dawned on her, special powers, like magic. She takes a moment to think, there wasn’t anything particularly special that she could do. “My sword…” she cuts herself off. She was going to say that her swordsmanship hadn’t been affected but then she remembers that she cannot summon either her sword or her armor. She hadn’t tested her affinity with wind or water but if what the man has been saying was true, those abilities would have been dampened as well.

“I suppose I do have powers?” It came out more like a question, “I attribute certain skills to magic but I suppose I can see how you could interpret that as some kind of special power.” She frowns, thinking a moment, “My swordsmanship has not been affected but I have not been able to access certain abilities since coming here. You are saying that is attributed to whatever have been put into our blood?”

Gaius raises a brow at that. The thought of anyone having any sort of magical or supernatural powers would have seemed ludicrous to him a month ago. Then again, a lot had changed in the two weeks since he was brought aboard the Prosperina. And things that should have not been possible were.

He wonders if any of the so-called powers the women aboard the Prosperina were able to use ever came in handy in bed.

"Gaius!"

But a familiar voice hissing out his name stops him from thinking about it too deeply. Those kind of thoughts were probably better thought elsewhere. Alone in his room, since his chances of finding female companionship with anyone other than Six appeared to be astonishingly low, given the few interactions he's had with the female residents of the Prosperina.

"That's the hypothesis, anyway," he answers with a wave of the arm. "I worked with blood a great deal before I came here. My blood has definitely been altered, and that alteration is present in the blood of every other sample we've investigated."

He folds his arms over his chest. "If you don't mind me prying, what sort of powers do you have? No one has any special powers where I come from, so I honestly find the whole idea fascinating."

Arturia didn’t like the thought of anyone limiting her in anyway and liked the thought even less that she had been violated in such a way while she slept. She tightened her grip on the microscope slightly as her lips formed a tight frown.

She almost missed Gaius’ question, “I do not mind.” She didn’t have much in the way of powers anyway. “I have a sword and armor which I am usually able to summon at will,” she made a motion with her hand, as if it would work this time. “I also have an affinity to wind,” she didn’t quite know how to explain how she used that magic so she left it at that.

“It is not anything special,” she didn’t have the magic of a mage or anything like that. Her reliance was mainly on her weapon and her scabbard, and without either she felt a little out of sorts. Avalon had been stolen from her once before and it spelled her end, she briefly wondered if that’s what the denizens of this ship desired for all of them.

"I would say it's incredibly special," Gaius says, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. "Then again, special powers aren't exactly the norm in my reality -- as I said before."

He presses his lips together tentatively. "If we do discover anything, I'll be sure to keep in touch. If you change your mind about donating, let me know. I spend a great deal of my time in this lab."

A beat.

"There's not much else to do on this station otherwise," he finishes.

“Well, it is not much use to me without my sword or my armor,” the woman just offered a small shrug, “Magic is commonplace where I am from.”

A nod accompanied his second statement, “Many thanks and I do appreciate your time.” She offered him a small bow before starting for the door, pausing momentarily to add, “I disagree that there is not much else to do on this station. They have adequate practice rooms, a library of books and other occupants to talk to.” The library was of course digital but Arturia din't have a word for that. She cocked her head, giving him a look over her shoulder.

“Perhaps what you meant is there is nothing more to do outside of this lab that interests you.”

She offered him a small smile, “Though, I am quite sure if you could find time away from your research and a way to fix the machine that dispenses food, you would find yourself to be a hero. The damned thing is quite daft when it comes to requests.”

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Blood Work [Open]

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