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imekitty · 4 years ago

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Each and every hair that Danny sheds, turns white.

Maddie pulled the lint trap out of the dryer to empty it but paused when she noticed bits and specks of it glowing.

She pinched at one of the glowing parts and rubbed it between her fingers.

A hair. A single white hair just a few inches long.

Maddie combed through the rest of the lint and picked out a couple more strands of glowing white hair. She sealed them in a zippered storage bag and brought it into the kitchen.

“Jack? Have you seen strands of white hair around the house?”

Jack held the fridge door open and stared intently at the options on the shelves. “White? You mean grey? I’ve been losing a little more hair than usual lately, I guess.”

“No, it’s not yours.”

“Oh, babe.” Jack turned back to her with a frown. “They’re not yours, are they? Hey, middle age, you know I’m there with you—”

Maddie scowled, her cheeks flushing. “No, Jack. They’re not mine either.”

“Oh.” Jack blinked. “Uh, sorry. What are we talking about?”

“This.” Maddie held up the bag of white hair. “I found them when I was doing laundry.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “They’re glowing. White ghost fur?”

“No, it’s not fur. It’s definitely hair.”

“Really?” Jack took the bag from her and held it close to his face. He reached inside and pulled out a single strand, squinting in inspection. “You’re right. But I’m not seeing a follicle. Might’ve been destroyed in the wash if it was ever there at all.” He placed the hair back in the bag. “Might be tough to get a good DNA sample.”

“Maybe there’s more around the house.” Maddie held a fist to her chin and looked out at the living room. “On clothes or blankets or even just in the carpet.”

“Let’s be on the lookout for more. If there’s a ghost hanging out in our house, we’ll find it.” Jack bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m just surprised our ghost sensors haven’t detected anything.”

Maddie crossed her arms and tapped her boot against the floor. She raised her eyes as a thought struck her. “Phantom.”

“What about him?” asked Jack.

“Phantom never triggers our ghost sensors for some reason,” said Maddie, her tone rising, pace quickening. “And he knows where we live. And we’ve seen him holding one of our Thermoses or other inventions multiple times. Obviously he’s been sneaking into our house and stealing things.” She held up the bag. “And he has white hair about this length! It’s got to be his.”

Jack smirked. “You’ve got Phantom on the brain again, don’t you?”

“But doesn’t it make sense?” asked Maddie.

“We’ll need to find a strand of hair with a follicle on it to find out for sure.” Jack clenched a fist. “But if it is him, that punk ghost can’t outrun us forever.”

Later that evening, after a healthy meal Maddie made sure was not contaminated with any ectoplasm this time, the whole family watched a movie together in the living room.

“I knew that was going to happen,” said Jack. “I told you, remember?”

“But it doesn’t even make sense,” said Jazz. “That could never happen in real life.”

Jack and Jazz proceeded to debate and criticize the movie as they so often did. Maddie smiled at Danny, who was sitting next to her but had fallen asleep some time ago. His head lay back against the sofa, his mouth open slightly.

She brushed a few unruly bangs off his forehead, bangs that really needed a trim. He sucked in a breath and opened his eyes, groaning slightly when he caught her looking at him.

“You’re such a light sleeper,” teased Maddie. “Are you tired?”

Danny mumbled a reply and groggily blinked.

“If you did your homework earlier, you wouldn’t need to stay up so late finishing it,” said Maddie.

Danny leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “I did some of it during lunch today.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Maddie.

Jack and Jazz were still picking apart some trivial detail from the movie. Maddie started rubbing and scratching Danny’s back.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tiny light.

Maddie turned to inspect. She plucked a strand of glowing white hair from off the couch behind Danny and held it close to her face.

How long had it been here?

Didn’t matter. The important thing was this one had a follicle.

Maddie closed her fingers over the hair and stood. All heads turned to her.

“I’ll be back.” Maddie walked to the door leading down to the lab. “You don’t need to pause it for me.”

At her work station, Maddie cleaned the hair, cut off the fragment she needed, and placed it in an extraction reagent to be digested. She had done this so many times before but this time seemed to be taking forever.

Heavy footsteps fell on the basement lab stairs. Maddie did not need to turn to know who it was.

“What’s going on, Mads?” asked Jack, coming up behind her.

“I found a white ghost hair with a root on the couch.” Maddie gestured to the equipment at her station. “It’s incubating right now.”

Jack grinned. “Really? Talk about luck!”

Maddie groaned and leaned over the counter. “I just wish the extraction process didn’t take so long.”

Jack tugged on her arm. “We’ll come back later when the kids are in bed. We’re gonna analyze that sucker tonight and figure out which ghost it belongs to!”

“It has to be Phantom,” said Maddie, allowing Jack to drag her out of the lab. “Who else could it be?”

Late that night, long after they made sure their kids were in bed, Maddie and Jack determined the final sequencing results from their DNA extraction and analysis.

Jack yawned and checked the clock in the lab. “I can’t believe it’s three already. I’m beat.”

Maddie bounced lightly on her toes. “Oh, I’m not. I am ready.”

They compared the DNA sequencing from the hair sample to a sequencing they had already obtained from Phantom several months prior.

“It’s a match,” said Jack. “You were right. It’s Phantom’s hair.”

Maddie clutched the printed results in her hands, crumpling the sheet slightly. “I knew it! He’s been coming into our house to steal our inventions!”

“And sit on our couch apparently,” said Jack. “Maybe he likes our Netflix subscription.”

“We’ll need to set up cameras.” Maddie began pacing the lab. “We’ll just tell the kids it’s only for a little while. Or we don’t have to tell them; they’d never know.”

“And maybe some laser sensors that only ghosts can trip,” suggested Jack. “Worth a try even if our other sensors never pick him up.”

Maddie grinned at him. “If Phantom wants to be in our house so bad, we might as well make our lab his permanent residence.”

Over the next couple weeks, Maddie studied footage from the interior cameras installed in the house and checked the logs for the laser sensors. But there were no hits, no glimpses, no Phantom.

Saturday afternoon, Maddie drove toward her favorite hair salon with Danny in the passenger seat. She had found several more strands of Phantom’s hair around the house just that morning, but still no sign of Phantom when she checked the camera recordings.

She stared out at the traffic, her head feeling heavy and dull.

“What’s wrong?” asked Danny.

Maddie pulled up to a red light and turned to look at him. The tips of his bangs collided with his eyelashes.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just waited way too long to schedule your haircut.”

She brushed his hair out of his eyes. Danny looked annoyed but smiled anyway.

Inside the salon, the stylist gushed over how thick Danny’s hair was before taking him to the shampoo bowls in the back. Maddie sat in the waiting area nearby and checked the camera feeds and sensor logs on her phone. Jazz was doing yoga stretches in the living room. Jack was rummaging through the pantry, probably looking for the last ounce of fudge he had forgotten he already ate.

The stylist returned with Danny and guided him into a chair, wrapping a cape around his shoulders. Maddie watched from a distance for a moment before returning to the camera feeds.

Phantom had to be somewhere in the house. He just had to be. Why else would his hair keep showing up?

“What is this?” asked the stylist, holding up a pair of scissors. “Is this glitter on your shoulders?”

Maddie looked over at Danny and the stylist. Something was indeed shimmering on his cape, small specks of light.

“It’s on the floor too.” The stylist picked up a shining piece. “No, wait, I just cut this off. This is your hair—”

Maddie marched over, her eyes darting from Danny’s shoulders to the floor. Small pieces of the same white hair she had been seeing for weeks were flecked all over his cape.

Danny caught her eye and grimaced. “Mom, it’s not what you—”

She tore the cape off him and dragged him out of the salon by the wrist. Danny pleaded and whined and begged her to listen but Maddie did not relent.

Out in the parking lot, she turned around to face him, still holding his wrist. The muscles in Danny’s jaw looked tight as his lips twitched.

“Mom.” He held up a palm. “Please listen to me.”

Maddie reached forward and plucked a hair from his head. Danny yelped and rubbed the area with his free hand.

Maddie watched as the dark strand turned white in her fingers, lighting up with a ghostly aura.

She stared at the hair for some time, then stared at Danny. His face was pale.

She held the spectral hair up between them. Her hand shook, her whole body shivered.

“I’m listening.”

Follow-up

#danny phantom #maddie fenton #danny fenton #imekitty writes #prompt writing #haddley

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thescentoflavender · 4 years ago

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MLQC CN: Chapter 37, Xu Mo’s Route (Part 1 of 5)

I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with Xu Mo here. All cells in the same plant should carry the same genetic information (DNA), with differential gene expression resulting in whether certain proteins are produced. So why are the genes in most plants “hidden in their seeds”? Surely an analysis of an extract from any plant tissue sample should give the same DNA sequence.

If any plant biologist out there is going to add on: I get why they want to store seeds. It’s much like what a seed bank does. What I want to know is if the DNA in seeds differs from that in other differentiated plant tissue of the same plant, which seems to be what Xu Mo is implying. That seems to go against everything I learnt in Biochemistry.

---

Dedicated to @superlemniscate as part of the prize for this contest.

I recommend reading this summary of Chapters 1-36 and this summary of Chapter 37 Parts 1-4 before reading the rest of this post.

Please don’t repost this translation in any way.

---

Beep beep.

I opened my eyes calmly to the incessant ringing of my alarm.

The sky was clear, an expanse of inky deep blue. If it wasn’t for the time displayed on my alarm, it was hard to believe that it was a new day.

After doing the necessary preparations for our filming, I hurried to a park newly built in the outskirts of Loveland City along with the rest of my production team.

In their efforts to prevent Judgment Day, the World Gene Association had entrusted the “Seed Strategy” project to the Highest Life Science Research Centre.

At the core of the project was to make a record of the genetic information of all the living things on the planet.

This would also be the topic discussed for the last episode of Discovering Miracles.

From a distance, I saw Ah Ming, clad in a white lab coat, walk over.

Ah Ming: You’re here! The professor can’t leave the park right now, so he asked me to receive you here.

[MC]: I’m sorry for inconveniencing you.

Ah Ming led us into the man-made park. It was colossal, with nearly all the habitats and living creatures that had ever walked this planet having been recreated here.

Ah Ming: The scope of this project is massive. The professor will probably be stuck in the park all day.

Ah Ming: He should be in the rainforest area now. I’ll bring you there.

After we had positioned the camera in the depths of the rainforest, I sought shelter beneath a tree. Raising my head, I could hear the chirping of birds and the calls made by other animals; vividly, I could feel the intense pulse of life.

Involuntarily, I closed my eyes. Suddenly, a drop of water landed on my face lightly.

[MC]: ...It’s raining?

Momentarily, the people around me started discussing what had happened. Since we were still indoors, everyone was surprised that it had started raining.

[MC]: Everyone, seek shelter first! Don’t let the machinery get wet!

As I said this, I kept the camera I had been holding.

The next second, a transparent umbrella was held over my head, the pitter-patter of rain falling on the roof of the umbrella a soothing melody to my ears.

Xu Mo: Have you been waiting for very long?

[MC]: We’ve only just reached. You’ve finished your work? I was surprised to see it rain here.

Xu Mo: It’s artificial rain.

Xu Mo: In this park, we aim to mimic natural habitats as closely as possible in order to recreate the environment of interest. Thus, such an event would occur.

I nodded absently.

Xu Mo: I’ve read the proposal you sent me. The topic is “The Miracles of Judgment Day”, is it not?

[MC]: Yup. Because it’s the last episode of Discovering Miracles, we want to release content that’s meaningful to the audience as far as possible.

[MC]: But there are some entries under the ‘Filming’ section in the proposal which may be a little idealistic. If it’s going to disrupt your work…

[MC]: What? Have I said something in error?

Xu Mo: No.

Xu Mo: Producer [MC], you did a wonderful job with your proposal.

Xu Mo: It is a huge improvement from the previous proposal for the final episode you had given me.

As he said this, Xu Mo nodded at me, a sign of affirmation. Yet the fleeting laughter in his eyes was unmistakable.

[MC]: You’re teasing me again!

The laughter in his eyes deepened. Bending over slightly, he brushed away the water droplets on my shoulder.

Xu Mo: Now, is it my turn to fulfil my responsibility as consultant?

Xu Mo: Let’s go. I’ll show you around.

Saying this, he caught my hand in his, surrounding me with the warmth of his palm.

As we entered the depths of the park, Xu Mo started explaining what the “Seed Project” was about, while I raised my camera and took pictures of various things as inspiration for our show.

Xu Mo: Research shows that the genes of most plants are hidden in their seeds. These encode their blueprints of inheritance.

Xu Mo: In the scientific world, there’s a saying: “If you don’t have a spare, once lost, the seeds are lost forever.”

Xu Mo: The end of the world normally spells an end to life too. But once life has existed, it will leave traces which can never be completely erased.

Xu Mo: In the endless dark of the night, they will await new life.

Without knowing it, we had arrived at the empty space at the centre of the park.

[MC]: The rain seems to have stopped.

At this very moment, the clear glass roof over our heads was engulfed by the inky night sky. Beneath our feet was a vast expanse of soil.

Xu Mo: This central experimental zone is a special base used for conducting experiments. When planted in this soil, living things can grow more quickly.

Xu Mo: Look at this.

Looking in the direction that Xu Mo was pointing, I saw various huge machines toiling away, their mechanical arms scattering seeds on the ground. Not long after landing, the seeds started sprouting.

[MC]: How magical!

The moment was so breathtaking, I couldn’t resist zooming in on this scene.

Next, I raised my camera and pointed it at Xu Mo. I cleared my throat.

[MC]: If I may ask, Professor Xu, was what we just saw the power of Evol?

Xu Mo shook his head.

Xu Mo: To be precise, it is the power of life.

His answer was short, but his tone was that of confidence. Even through the screen, I could distinctly see the vitality that flashed in his eyes.

I had also seen this expression in his eyes on many previous occasions.

Sharp, aloof, ambitious.

Never once had he forgotten what he had set out to do. Always, in his own way, he was pushing life to run its course.

Xu Mo: [MC].

[MC]: ...Huh?

Xu Mo: Your camera seems to have run out of battery.

Xu Mo’s voice called me back to my senses. Smiling, he pointed at the camera I was holding. With an embarrassed smile, I put it away.

[MC]: Haha, I didn’t even notice.

Very quickly, the filming ended. After instructing my team on the work to be done, I bid goodbye to Yueyue and the others.

When I looked back, Xu Mo was still standing at the same spot as he had been in earlier, his head tilted upwards in contemplation of the branches outlined by moonlight, his thoughts unreadable.

Briskly, I walked towards him.

[MC]: We’ve wrapped up our filming. Thank you, Xu Mo.

[MC]: Thank you for helping me out again and again. Thank you for agreeing to become the consultant for my show.

[MC]: Thank you for allowing Discovering Miracles to end on a satisfying note. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

[MC]: And regardless of whether it’s on behalf of the show or myself, I am very, very grateful to you.

Xu Mo: Such a polite declaration of appreciation—I fear that I could be mistaken again.

Xu Mo: Could it be that you’re going to fire me again?

[MC]: This is after all inevitable. I think, our partnership has indeed come to an end.

Xu Mo didn’t seem to take me seriously. Still smiling, he gazed at me and even nodded along as if to show that he understood.

...I knew I wouldn’t be able to trick him.

Clearing my throat with mock gravity, I extended my right hand in all earnestness.

[MC]: Next, I hope to enter another kind of partnership with Professor Xu Mo.

Xu Mo: Okay.

[MC]: Aren’t you going to ask what it’s about?

Xu Mo: No matter what you want to do, my answer will always be the same.

With that, Xu Mo took my hand.

[MC]: Hi Professor Xu, I’m your new special assistant [MC]! I’m very honoured to work with you again!

[MC]: It’s now 17:04. My first day starts now.

Something glimmered in Xu Mo’s eyes, but he kept silent.

[MC]: You aren’t thinking of going back on your word, are you?

Xu Mo: I’m just curious. How long do you intend to be my special assistant for?

[MC]: Is a month too long?

Xu Mo: A little.

I choked for a moment. Just as I was about to rebut him, I saw a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips.

Xu Mo: I thought you would give me a few days of leave.

Xu Mo: It seems like the next month will be very fulfilling.

Xu Mo: All the best, my special assistant.

#mr love: queen's choice #love and producer #mlqc #mlqc cn #恋与制作人 #chapter 37 #xu mo's route #xu mo #lucien #thescentoflavender translations

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years ago

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Long Way From Home: Chapter 3

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Friendship Characters: Scott, Tracy Family

We're far enough in now that I can safely credit @ak47stylegirl and her fic Thunderbirds Meet Thunderbirds for inspiring the overarching premise behind this fic without spoiling what the premise is. There are some obvious differences between the fics, and will continue to be differences, but I almost certainly would not have considered throwing Scott into TOS without reading that fic.

<<<Chapter 2

The room they ended up in, passing through another room full of chairs in the process, was the closest any room so far had looked to home. A sunken area contained a variety of seats, all in front of a desk, while towards the window sat a baby grand.

“Take a seat,” Not-Dad said, settling himself behind the desk. A position of power, Scott noted. Not-Dad had a clear idea of where they stood with regards to each other, and it wasn’t in Scott’s favour. He remained standing, noticing pictures of five young men and a beautiful woman on the walls, surrounded by unmistakably oriental artwork. The young men were familiar. Four of them, he’d already met. Other-Scott looked back at him almost cheekily, while Other-Virgil held a cigarette. Other-Alan looked disinterested, and Other-Gordon was reclining casually. At the far end, next to Other-Scott, was a fifth man – blond – with his arms folded, and Scott’s insides twisted unpleasantly. He had a feeling he knew the final man’s name.

The rest of the family began to file in, seating themselves in what appeared to be a pre-ordained seating plan. Other-Alan perched on a corner of the desk, and Scott waited until everyone had found their seats before folding himself up into a sofa in the middle of the sunken area.

“Now, the first order of business is to work out exactly how Scott arrived here,” Not-Dad proclaimed. “He claims not to know, but there must be some clues.”

“But, Jeff,” Mrs Tracy interjected. “What about his brothers? You are going to look for them, aren’t you?”

Scott had been about to demand the same thing. Not-Dad looked uncomfortable.

“But Mother-” he began. “This is a remote island. It should be impossible for anyone to arrive unannounced. For our own security, we must find out how Scott arrived here.”

“Surely we can look for clues about his brothers at the same time, Father,” Other-Virgil offered. “There are enough of us.” Not-Dad seemed unconvinced, and Scott got to his feet, ready to demand that they locate his brothers before doing anything else, when the door opened.

“I, uh, think I-I’ve solved the, uh, mystery of h-how Scott a-arrived here, Mr Tracy.” Scott stared at the man in the doorway, his stutter and blue-framed glasses instantly reminding him of Brains, for all that this man was white, and English from his accent.

“You have, Brains?” the elder man asked, his attention immediately switching off of Scott, who was getting very sick and tired of familiar names and semi-familiar faces with no explanations.

“W-well, it, uh, might sound a bit fantastical, b-but John and I believe i-it’s, uh, the only explanation,” Other-Brains warned as he entered the room properly. At this point, Scott didn’t care if it was fantastical – if it was plausible, he’d take it, especially after the casual name drop of one of his brothers. The final one, completing the set.

“The, uh, DNA sample I collected turns out to, uh, p-perfectly match the, uh, sample I took from o-our Scott.”

“What sample?” Scott interrupted, sparing a glance towards Other-Scott, who had spoken at the same time.

“Your, uh, surprising resemblance to o-our Scott prompted me to, uh, take a sample for a-analysis.” Other-Brains didn’t seem the slightest bit repentant. “A-as for you, uh, Scott, t-there are many, uh, ways to obtain a sample from, uh, your o-own home.”

“So you’re saying this guy’s a clone?” Other-Alan interrupted, and Scott bristled.

“Well, uh, technically b-by sharing a-a ninety nine point nine p-percent DNA match they are, uh, c-clones, but not in the, uh, way you m-mean, Alan,” Brains replied.

“Explain, Brains,” Not-Dad demanded. “What do you mean by that?”

“W-well, Mr Tracy, when I-I said that, uh, their DNA was a-a perfect match, t-there is, uh, one s-small discrepancy.” He presented them with a clipboard, which showed far too many numbers and squiggles for Scott to make head or tail of it. “S-see here, there, uh, is a foreign s-strand in his, uh, results.”

Scott couldn’t see what he was referring to, even when he helpfully pointed to a particular section of comparison.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say we can’t see a thing, Brains,” Not-Dad. “But we’ll take your word for it. What does it mean?”

“Quite, uh, honestly, Mr Tracy, I-I’ve never seen this before,” Other-Brains admitted. “H-however, I believe the answer, uh, lies with the, uh, technology that he a-arrived with.”

“You’ve been poking at my gear?” Scott demanded, stepping forwards. Mrs Tracy put her hand on his arm lightly.

“J-Just a cursory, uh, glance.” Other-Brains still didn’t sound at all repentant for his intrusions. “Enough to, uh, tell that y-your technology is nothing l-like, uh, ours.”

“So, what, he’s an alien?” Other-Alan asked. It was such an Alan-like – his Alan-like – accusation that something in Scott’s chest hurt.

“I, uh, believe John w-would be, uh, better to explain,” Other-Brains deferred. “Mr Tracy?”

“I’m not sure about that, Brains,” Not-Dad disagreed. “It’s one thing showing him our home, but John is in a top secret location. We can’t reveal that on a whim.”

“O-on the contrary, Mr Tracy, i-if John and I are, uh, correct, he is a-already fully a-aware of John’s, uh, location.”

“What?” Other-Scott snapped, his hand landing sharply on Scott’s shoulder. “How?” His fingers dug in tightly, too tightly to be shaken off without the use of force, and Mrs Tracy’s hand was still lightly resting on his arm.

Scott was more concerned about what they were saying. John and location automatically signalled Thunderbird Five, but this wasn’t his John. Whatever was going on here, despite his uniform International Rescue had yet to be mentioned and he had been intending on keeping it that way, unwilling to bring that sort of information to the attention of a group of individuals too weird and bizarre to trust.

“I want you to explain, Brains,” Not-Dad ordered. “I refuse to involve John in a situation this delicate.”

“I-if you, uh, say so, Mr Tracy.” Other-Brains was clearly disappointed at not having back-up for his explanation, but Scott didn’t care who said it at this point as long as it was an answer. “Well, there, uh, is a theory a-amongst astrophysicists k-known colloquially a-as the, uh, multiverse theory. It a-addresses the theorem that, uh, there are multiple universes. John is, uh, better versed i-in it th-than I, but, uh, I know enough to, uh, believe that this is o-our answer.”

“He’s from a parallel universe?” Other-Alan exploded. “No way, Brains. That’s ridiculous!”

“I, uh, did say it was f-fantastical,” Other-Brains reminded him.

“Yes, Brains, but this seems very far-fetched,” Other-Virgil pointed out. “Suppose that’s true; how did he get here?”

“Well, uh, travel between these, uh, theoretical u-universes has not been, uh, investigated, so u-unless Scott’s universe has been, uh, experimenting in the field it is most likely that the, uh, two u-universes temporarily, uh, collided and Scott fell th-through a r-resulting fissure.”

“I don’t remember falling through any fissures,” Scott protested. “I had just left,” he paused, still determined to leave International Rescue out of the conversation, even if Other-Brains was alluding to something similar with Other-John, “my plane and was on my way out of the hangar. Then I woke up here!”

“The ‘plane’ in question wouldn’t be Thunderbird One, by any chance?” an unfamiliar voice asked. It was slightly distorted, as though coming through a speaker. The gentle touch on his arm and the talon grip on his shoulder did nothing to stop Scott tensing.

“What do you mean?” he snarled, looking around for the owner of the new voice. Nothing had changed, no-one had entered the room without his knowledge-

Other-Brains had his left arm held at a weird angle, the face of his watch pointed directly towards Scott. Instead of the ancient, analogue dial he expected to see there, a man’s head was visible. He had a shock of platinum blond hair, but Scott’s attention was caught by the blue hat perched slightly lopsidedly atop his head.

They’d scrapped those hats years ago, one of Dad’s flights of fancy they had all been glad to ditch with a uniform upgrade.

“John!” Not-Dad sounded furious. “Brains, I said we would not be involving John in this!”

“As Brains said, Father, there’s no point.” The blond man – Other-John, recognisable as the fifth portrait hanging on the wall even if he was wearing civilian clothes in that, rather than what looked suspiciously like a proto-IR uniform in Other-Brains’ watch – seemed unbothered at his father’s fury. “This Scott is another universe’s equivalent to our Scott. According to the clothes he was wearing when you found him, that includes being the pilot of Thunderbird One for International Rescue.”

“If this is all true,” Scott interrupted, choosing to chew through the International Rescue bit and the fact that there was a Thunderbird One here later. “All these parallel universes and colliding universes and falling through fissures into other universes stuff. What about my brothers? Aside from one,” he wasn’t willing to give any names out yet, even if Other-Brains and Other-John, at least, seemed to be sharp enough to make a correct assumption “they were all in the house when I got back. Wouldn’t this ‘fissure’ have swallowed them, too?”

It was an outlandish theory. The idea that he’d fallen through into some parallel universe and was now with an alternate version of his family – a version that still had their father, his brain pointed out unhappily – was ludicrous. But it was a theory. He’d heard Alan mention it once, although the teenager had been more interested in the prospect of aliens in their own universe than another one at that moment in time. They were colonising Mars, pushing other expeditions further afield in the Solar System. Space travel was an expensive luxury, but it was a luxury available to anyone with the money, not just the strictest trained of astronauts. Further exploration of the universe was underway, but nothing had ever touched the concept of other universes.

Yet, in the absence of anything more solid, Scott was willing to cling to the theory Other-Brains and Other-John were presenting. As long as his brothers were safe.

“You were found in our Thunderbird One’s hangar,” Other-John informed him, and Not-Dad did not seem happy at that bit of information leaking out, from his attempt to interrupt. Other-John ignored him. “If you were in your own Thunderbird One’s hangar when the collision occurred, that means that you were simply displaced from the location in your home to the identical location in ours. On that basis, if your brothers were also transported, they would have appeared in their respective locations in our home as well. Seeing as they haven’t, I think it’s safe to assume that you are the only one that fell through.”

“But-” That was a lot of supposition, and Scott was not willing to stop searching on the assumption that just because what happened to him hadn’t happened to them, didn’t mean nothing had happened to them.

“However, to be safe, I have included additional parameters into Thunderbird Five’s algorithm to locate any mentions of people appearing out of nowhere, their names, assuming their names are the same as ours, or any other similar phenomena, so if they have ended up elsewhere, I’ll pick it up,” Other-John continued. “If they’re here, I’ll find them. If they’re not, that explains why they haven’t contacted you.”

It was practically a moot point to name drop Thunderbird Five at this point, as far as Scott was concerned, more interested and reassured by Other-John’s calm assessment of the possibilities and the measures he’d made to handle them, reluctantly nodding that yes, their names were the same. Not-Dad, on the other hand, seemed almost apoplectic as he stood rapidly from his desk.

“I did not authorise you to talk about the Thunderbirds, John!” the man thundered. “You have no proof that this Scott has links to an International Rescue of his own, and even if he did, there is no guarantee that they are the same!”

“Yes, Father.” Scott didn’t like the tone Other-John adopted, one that seemed almost used to scoldings. Dad wouldn’t have been like that with them if he was still around and in charge of International Rescue… would he?

Deciding not to dwell on those thoughts, and also finding himself unexpectedly infuriated by Not-Dad’s temper flaring at Other-John, Scott glanced around the room and found something unexpectedly familiar.

Two lamps sat innocently on one wall, perfectly spaced for someone of his height to stand between and hold onto – or pull down.

It probably wasn’t his smartest idea – in fact, he could hear Virgil and John in his head telling him emphatically not to do it – but his reckless streak had never listened to reason. He gently removed the light touch of Mrs Tracy from his arm, and twisted sharply to dislodge Other-Scott’s grip before striding purposefully over to the lamps. Muscle memory dictated his movement more than conscious thought, his arms jarring as the lamps did not pull down, but a switch depressed beneath his fingers nonetheless, and to a chorus of disbelieving – and frustrated, in some cases – voices, the room disappeared in a smooth rotation to reveal Other-Scott’s launch tube.

Or should have done, if it was the same as home. What he had not expected, as he automatically stepped forwards, off of the plate before it could spin back around, was to be immediately greeted by the sleek grey form of Thunderbird One herself.

Immediately he could see differences to his own ‘bird. The pilot seat was inside the cockpit, not extended for boarding, and the opening resembled a door more than a viewing window. VTOL jets were positioned in different places, there were no letters dictating fuel intake, areas of danger and other basic safety information, and her shape was very slightly different.

However, small differences aside, there was no doubt that this was Thunderbird One. Even ignoring the bold white lettering proclaiming her as such, there was no doubting the grey hull, blue engine housing and, most distinctively of all, the vibrant red nose cone.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Other-Scott asked from behind him. Scott made a noise of agreement – even if she wasn’t his, she was close enough that visually, she looked just as stunning. “I guess you have the same access point? You gave Dad quite the shock when you found the entrance to her hangar like that.”

“Near enough,” he confirmed as Other-Scott stepped up beside him, leaning his arms over the railing as he also gazed at Thunderbird One. “The portrait of the rocket goes to Two?”

“Virgil’s crazy slide,” Other-Scott said, bemused.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Scott agreed. “I didn’t see Three or Four’s entrances.”

“Your Four has an access from the lounge?” Other-Scott sounded surprised. “Dad refused to put one in. Gordon has to take the passenger route to Two.”

“A fish tank,” Scott admitted. “Gordon refuses to keep fish in there, though. Says it would be too traumatic for them. He stole John’s model Stingray and put that in there instead.”

Other-Scott chuckled, the first time he’d been anything other than serious since Scott had first seen him.

“That sounds like something Gordon would do,” he admitted. “Your John let him?”

“Said it was a more accurate place for it then the stand in his room,” Scott confirmed.

“And that sounds like something John would say,” Other-Scott grinned, before falling quiet for a moment, studying his ‘bird. “Do you think they’re right?” he asked. “That you’re from a parallel universe?”

It still sounded ridiculous said out loud.

“I don’t know,” Scott admitted. “But it’s the best guess we’ve got and sounds marginally better than insanity.” How he was going to get home, if he really had ended up in another universe, was another matter entirely.

“I suppose that’s true,” Other-Scott said. “But we’ll work something out.”

“Scott!” Not-Dad’s voice echoed through the hangar as the man strode towards them. He did not look pleased, and they shared a look.

“Which one of us does he mean?” Scott wondered out loud. Other-Scott shrugged, clearly bracing himself for a storm. Once again, Scott was left to wonder if it would be the same if Dad was still around – would he be used to disapproval, and a father ruling the roost with an iron fist?

He shoved those thoughts away firmly and straightened his spine. Not-Dad might have his own son contrite, but he had faced down too many people who saw themselves as his superior to cower in front of a man with no relation to him.

“What are you doing in here?” Not-Dad demanded. “How did you find the entrance?” Behind him, at a more sedate pace but intrigue clear in their eyes – exact colour matches to Scott’s own brothers – were Other-Virgil, Other-Gordon and Other-Alan. Brains brought up the rear, his watch still broadcasting Other-John’s face. Scott was getting fed up with all of the questions.

“Because I’m Scott Tracy,” he declared, stepping forwards, away from the Thunderbird behind him and towards the man challenging him. “Because that is my ship and I know how to get to her.” He expected Other-Scott to protest, remind him that it wasn’t his Thunderbird One because they were in the wrong universe for that, but he didn’t.

Not-Dad was shorter than him. Not by much, just enough for him to realise he was looking ever so slightly down to meet his eyes. Did that mean he had outgrown Dad, a final growth spurt just after the Zero-X and the tragedy that brought?

“How dare you take that tone with me!” Not-Dad snapped, fury flashing through grey eyes. Behind him, two pairs of brown eyes and one pair of blue had widened in surprise. “Does your father permit you to talk back to him like that?” All at once, Scott’s temper flared.

“My father is GONE!” he shouted, fist flying to the side and connecting with the wall of the hangar. “You might look like him, but you’re not him, and I won’t treat you like him!”

Silence followed his words, even after the echoes of his yells finished bouncing off the hangar walls. His own breathing was loud, too loud to his own ears, and his knuckles started to throb as he felt everyone’s eyes on him.

Other-Alan spoke first, because he was Other-Alan and of course he did, for all that this Alan wasn’t a teenager and should at least have some modicum of common sense.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?”

Scott ignored him, finding Not-Dad’s – Never-Dad’s – eyes again. They were shocked, horrified, even, and seeing that expression on a face that looked just like his father’s reminded him of the last time he’d seen his Dad look like that. When Mom died.

He had to get out.

Thunderbird One was behind him, offering haven except she wasn’t his Thunderbird One and he knew they would all crowd the cockpit, imprisoning him inside until he talked. He had no intention of ever talking, of telling these strangers wearing his family’s names and almost-faces about how much it hurt. He’d never planned to tell them Dad was gone in the first place.

The two lamps stuck out of the wall, nearest Other-Scott. They’d lead back into the lounge, an unfamiliar place but one that it would at least take time for them to pursue him there, judging by how long it had taken them to join him in the hangar. He lunged forwards, found the catches on the lamps and spun the wall back around. Behind him, the silence broke, voices talking over voices in a cacophony that was shut out as soon as the rotation completed. Soundproofed walls. Nothing less than he’d expected.

“Oh, dearie, what happened?” He’d forgotten Mrs Tracy would still be there. “Oh, you poor thing. Look at your hand. Tin-Tin, be a darling.”

“Of course, Mrs Tracy,” the young woman said, finding her feet and hurrying across the room to him. “Oh, that looks nasty. I’ll treat it right away.” A touch on his elbow and his feet were moving of their own accord, following her down the stairs and through hallways he’d yet to learn until they arrived in a room he recognised.

The signs of his fight with Other-Scott had gone, gaps on the shelves where bottles had stood when he first woke the only indication that anything had happened in the room. As Tin-Tin directed him to sit in a chair, grabbing a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of bandages for knuckles he hadn’t realised were bleeding, for all that they were throbbing in discontent, he caught sight of his uniform, still neatly folded.

His comm unit was on the top, and he reached for it to find it was too far away from where he was sat.

“I’m almost finished,” Tin-Tin assured him. “You know,” she continued. “If you open the window, there’s a track that runs up towards a cliff. Only Scott ever goes up there – his brothers don’t know about it.”

Scott stared at her, realising for the first time that for all their differences, this young woman was likely this universe’s version of Kayo.

“I don’t think he would like that you told me that,” he said, unable to bring himself to address Not-Dad by any name. His voice cracked mid-sentence and he frowned. “He wants me under his watch.”

“Oh, Scott,” she replied, pulling the bandages tight. “He’s worried.” A delicate hand picked up his comm unit and pressed it into his uninjured hand. “I’ve known our Scott a long time,” she added, closing his hand over the unit. “In all that time, I’ve only seen him cry once.” By the time he had registered her words and raised a hand to his face, surprised to find it come away damp, she’d left the room.

Swiping at the tears angrily now that he knew they were there, he regarded the unit in his hand, and then the window. A place to himself was exactly what he needed, although the idea of using one of Other-Scott’s escapes felt distinctly weird. Footsteps outside the room forced his decision – if they were going to find him in this state, he could at least attempt to make it a challenge.

The window opened easily, and soundlessly. Well-maintained, and he wondered how often Other-Scott used it, or if one of the others also had escape routes from the infirmary. Considering his own brothers, it was likely that they all did – one of the reasons Grandma had put their infirmary in a room with only one exit was because they were all terrible patients and one exit was infinitely easier to guard than multiple.

He remembered his lack of shoes only when bare feet met dirt, but he had no idea where Other-Scott kept his shoes, and no desire to go hunting. The route Tin-Tin had described stood out to him easily, a challenging terrain that he would have chosen himself even if he hadn’t already known about it. Then again, this universe’s version of him had done exactly that, once. Strapping the comm unit firmly to his wrist, finding familiar comfort in its snug fit and slight weight, he started up the trail.

It wasn’t as challenging as it looked; once Scott found his rhythm it was almost easy, but as it was an escape route from the infirmary that made sense. Escape routes were useless if they couldn’t be used. After only a few minutes he rounded a particularly aggressive-looking crag to find a hollow tucked behind it. The view was fantastic, jungles and volcanic crags combined with the ocean behind and the sky above. Down below, he could just about see a white building that had to be the villa, an oddly-shaped swimming pool set in front of it.

There was no doubt this was Other-Scott’s secret escape.

He curled his legs in, out of sight of anyone that might be looking up the route, and tore his eyes away from the unfamiliar vista to focus on his comm unit. Logically, he knew it was useless. John would have been trying to get hold of him as soon as he woke from his cat nap, and if anything was going to get through to here – to another universe – it would be the powerful signals of Thunderbird Five.

Scott didn’t want to listen to logic. Despite being wrapped in bandages, his fingers found all the right places to activate the comm unit, and he waited with bated breath for it to connect. It took a while, connection symbol flashing orange as it searched for a signal to hook onto. International Rescue technology was as resourceful as the rest of them. Designed to be compatible with every known network in the world, as well as their own with Thunderbird Five at the heart, there were blessedly few places where signal was impossible. Here, on a Tracy Island, with a Thunderbird Five proven to be sending and receiving signals, there was no way his comm unit wouldn’t be able to find a network to hijack.

The red symbol that eventually flashed up defied him, the slash through the connection symbol taunting him as it declared there were no networks in the area.

“Don’t you dare!” he complained at it, shaking his wrist vigorously and resorting to fierce taps when the red symbol stayed steady. “There’s a signal right there, dammit!” he cursed, gesturing down towards where the villa lay. “And up there!” He motioned to the sky, where their Thunderbird Five undoubtably lurked. “How can you not find it at all? Dammit!”

He depressed the call button anyway, watching the hologram technology awaken, ready to beam his image to whoever was on the other end. With tearstained cheeks, scruffy pyjamas that weren’t his, and a wrapped-up hand, he didn’t want his image beaming anywhere, and quickly changed the setting to audio-only.

“Thunderbird Five?” he tried. “Come in, Thunderbird Five. John, are you there?”

The red symbol stubbornly remained, and his comms remained silent. He’d thought that at least Other-John would answer.

“John? Virgil are you there? Come on, guys, pick up! Gordon, can you hear me? Alan!” His voice cracked and he scrubbed at his face again, unsurprised but frustrated when it came back freshly damp. “Kayo? Grandma? Brains? Anyone, dammit!” He was begging and he knew it, tears seeping into his voice no matter how hard he tried to keep them up. “MAX? EOS! You’re always hacking things you shouldn’t, you damn AI. You’ve got to be here! Put me through to John. I know he’s looking for me. Just… put me through, dammit!”

The red symbol never wavered, blocking him from his family no matter how much he cursed, threatened, begged it.

“Why won’t you work, you stupid piece of junk?” he demanded. “It’s only a goddamn universe in the way. Just one, stupid, measly, universe!”

A universe. An ever-expanding chasm of space that contained billions upon billions of galaxies, which themselves contained billions of stars and planets. They were colonising Mars. Thunderbird Three had managed to travel out as far as Jupiter. The distances were incredible; the wonder as Alan launched off to far-flung parts of their solar system never failed to strike Scott.

Those incredible distances didn’t even make a fraction of the chasm between them now.

A chance collision of universes had thrown him across. Inter-universe travel wasn’t even a daydream in the minds of their most advanced scientists, and from Other-John’s words, this universe was the same.

Scott wasn’t John, but he was reasonably handy with numbers and probabilities. The chances of another collision occurring that would send him home again were beyond remote. International Rescue made the impossible happen, but Scott was all too painfully aware that even they had limits. How did you rescue someone from another universe?

Would they even know where he was? It took Other-Brains and Other-John some leaps of logic, DNA testing between him and Other-Scott, and a grasp of the difference in their technology to reach the conclusion. All his family would have was the fact that he was gone. Without a trace. It would be even worse than Dad. At least they knew what had happened to Dad, had seen that cursed footage of the Zero-X exploding into infinite pieces with no body left to bury.

He had just vanished.

John would be blaming himself, cursing himself for going to take his next nap before ensuring Scott was safely in the house. He remembered what his brother had been like when Dad had gone, the weeks, months, of frantic searching and sleepless nights until he’d taken Three up and all but bust through the airlock to drag John back to Earth. He hadn’t let him back up there until the space elevator was installed, one of Brains’ pet projects that Dad had vetoed but Scott demanded because anything to bring their family closer together was a good thing.

He hoped one of the others would stop John tearing himself apart. His little brothers were strong, he had to believe that. If Other-John was right and they weren’t also here, somewhere in this strange universe with its indecipherable technology. No, Scott wanted them at home. He wanted the four of them to be together, even if he wasn’t there.

But he would be, he promised. No matter that the distance between them was insurmountable, no matter that there were some things even International Rescue couldn’t do. Nothing, not even the damn universe – or however many universes were involved in this fiasco – was going to stop Scott Tracy going home to his brothers.

He just had to figure out how.

Chapter 4>>>

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Tsari writes fanfiction #scott tracy #jeff tracy #john tracy #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #alan tracy #grandma tracy #brains #tin-tin kyrano #long way from home

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thebeautyofdisorder · 5 years ago

Text

The Undone & The Divine (BBC Dracula) - Chapters 1 & 2

A/N: Okay, I am rusty - very rusty, so feel free to give me some notes. This will be multiple parts - maybe 4 or 5 - and will remain open ended for future additions. It will be a snarky, confused occult monstrosity with a lot of thus far unresolved sexual tension and I'm not sorry. Takes place after the end of The Dark Compass. I will be posting this on AO3 eventually, but for now...

Rating: T, currently just for some blood and maybe language

Pairing: Dracula & Zoe/Agatha

Can be found on AO3 - Right HERE -

“Wherever this shadowed path might lead, we were both irrevocably committed to follow it to the end.” - Susan Kay, Phantom

Chapter 1

The first thought that arose in Zoe’s mind was simply that she shouldn’t be having any. No, an inward argument seemed to be countering, but that she had been growing accustomed to. Faith was an inner struggle she was stubbornly coming to terms with, given that there was a very literal opposing force in her ancestor that enjoyed prodding at her modern, atheistic convictions. Not even in religious fervor, nun’s habit notwithstanding, but just for amusement’s sake. She could see where she inherited her argumentative nature from.

Head swimming, potential psychosis or no, she had expected at least death to be final. A distant bell of alarm jolted somewhere in her mind, as some sense of memory and consciousness began to return to her, soon followed by sensation seeping back to her body. She expected the worst, but what she experienced instead was simply…nothing. The pain which had been her constant companion for the last few months was gone. She didn’t even feel the typical stiffness of a woman pushing forty waking up on a cold, hard surface should rightly feel.

Cold, hard surface…

Her eyelids shot open, and she sat up so quickly she felt immediately dizzy. At least there was still blood to rush to my head, she mused dimly, though luckily her legs hadn’t gotten the fight or flight message quite as quickly, or else she would have tumbled straight onto the floor. The hard, polished marble beneath her, still sticky with her blood, brought the events of the morning, however distant they were, rushing back to her.

If this wasn’t some twisted form of coma dream, and she wasn’t actually hooked up to some machine at the hospital, she was going to have to have a chat with Auntie Agatha about consenting to suicide by vampire. Mostly due to the fact she was very much alive – or at the very least, moving and conscious. Her hand pressed to her neck, feeling nothing but dried blood surrounding a slightly raised scar at the crook of her shoulder.

Not always equivalent, she reminded herself with barely repressed panic. Or maybe Agatha reminded her. It was becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

But what of the vampire?

Half freezing in the semi-darkness, Zoe waited what felt like a decade, searching for any sound or sign of movement in the room…in the flat. Nothing. Silence.

The natural curiosity of the scientist, refusing to lay dormant any longer, pushed past her fear and uncertainty, and drove her to slide off the edge of the table on shaking legs. There was no sign of Dracula, dead or alive that she could see. Instead her eyes sought out a light switch.

She half expected to see a large pile of dust and ash, or worse – some sticky pile of blood and skin, like a B-horror film she’d seen as a teenager, but aside of what remained of Lucy, the floor was immaculate, in only the way the living dead could maintain.

Strangely lacking any sense of urgency, she paced through the rest of the flat, observing the dark modern decor with a distant amusement that belonged more to Agatha than to herself. The washroom was almost entirely unused, save for the large standing shower, more of a luxury than a necessity, she assumed. The kitchenette seemed to be only taking up space, and while there were a few stray tea bags and a chipped mug, likely belonging to some human help – the lawyer probably, the rest of it was barren. Finally reaching the bedroom, she found the curtains still fully drawn, and the bed large and vacant.

If he survived, he was gone. Some unknown part of her felt a pang of disappointment, and an equal echo of triumph. She wasn’t sure which one to blame Agatha for, and she was left no hints.

Well, that was one mystery solved.

Collapsing on the mattress, Zoe closed her eyes, and did something she never thought she’d have to do: she fell silent and listened for her own heartbeat. At first there was an unnerving stillness. Finally, after approximately 15 seconds (she had been counting), she heard the first soft thump in her chest. Half relieved, she let out a breath, and began counting again – she heard it once more. Faint and very slow, but present, yes!

Fascinating. Agatha’s quietly accented tone was one of clinical fascination, something Zoe could ascertain easily as it echoed through her mind.

Zoe quietly agreed. Somehow, she…they were now something more than undead, but less than fully alive.

Something like the count himself.

------

There were times that the highly illegal nature of the Harker Institute was a damning thing, and one that caused Zoe great inconvenience. This was not one of those times. A woman previously dying of cancer showing up to work to get a full range of clandestine tests was not something to be trusted to the general public. If she hadn’t been so amazed, she was sure her predecessor would’ve been highly disappointed to see her.

She had left Dracula’s London flat exactly as it was, and headed straight to the Institute. It wasn’t exactly a police matter, and now that Agatha had destroyed the vampire’s …agoraphobia? Whatever it was she had done, there wasn’t anything they could really do to ward him away. The sun was no longer a viable weapon, and while she was sure his distaste for Christian imagery wouldn’t just vanish overnight, his need to be invited into a location was gone and probably easily forgotten when convenient.

The dirt…well, that was a different story. She found no trace of it in his flat, save for a musty residue in the corner of a now empty closet. That was the one part of the puzzle she had yet to figure out. Was that just another part of his self-ordained folklore, or did it actually have some restorative power. Did it contain some needed mineral or compound? Surely there was a scientific reason behind it if so.

As scientific as why you’re walking around with half the blood you need to function? Or that you haven’t eaten in 36 hours and have no appetite. You can drink water, at least, that’s a blessing.

She refrained from voicing her annoyance aloud – last thing she needed was for her colleagues to think she was undead AND crazy. Neither of which was entirely true… or entirely false. At least they weren’t locking her up. Not yet.

“Dr. Helsing?”

Zoe shook herself from her thoughts to look up at the lab tech who’s just entered the room, giving the girl a distant smile.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Bloxham wants to see you downstairs…it’s about your test results.”

Which test results she wanted to ask, but didn’t, merely got up and followed the girl who was taking great pains to keep a healthy distance between them out of the room. She didn’t blame her. It had taken Jonathan Harker a month to show any vampiric urges. They saw her as a ticking time bomb.

------

“Well, for the positive, any trace of cancer seems to have…vanished from your system.”

Zoe had guessed as much, and perhaps her lack of reaction was what brought the look of concern to her colleague’s face.

“And for the negative?”

The other woman silently bit her lip for a moment, and instead of immediately responding, she stood from her chair and gestured for Zoe to take the seat in front of the computer.

Pointing from over her shoulder, Bloxham indicated two files in the folder in front of her. One was labeled with Zoe’s name, and the other was data collected from Dracula’s blood sample.

“What’re you trying to show me?” She sounded tired, and perhaps she was. It was hard to tell anymore. The enfeebled exhaustion she had felt constantly up until the night before was gone, but the memory lingered like a bad taste in her mouth.

“Open them.” The comment was clipped, but more in anticipation than impatience.

Zoe did just that, and looked over the standard blood analysis results. To say the differences were minimal was almost too generous.

“I don’t know what happened to you exactly – given you won’t tell me…,” she began, eyeing Zoe with a meaningful look, “But your DNA is...I don’t want to say mutated, but...altered. You’re alive, don’t get me wrong – but your readings all look as though they should come from someone on the verge of death – in a coma at the least! And well…look at you.” It was rhetorical, Zoe knew, but she still found herself seeking out the nearest reflective surface, just to ensure she saw her own face as she knew it looking back at her.

“I can’t force you, but I’m going to strongly recommend you stay here so you can be closely monitored for any further….changes.”

Zoe, never one to be a victim of circumstance, rolled her eyes with a casual scoff. If she was going to be anyone’s lab rat, it might as well be her own.

“Well, obviously. I want every even minimal change documented to the fullest,” she agreed, immediately standing to her feet and stalking over to a microscope she knew without needing to ask contained a slide of her sample, rerouting her focus. “Have you compared the saliva?”

The other woman’s relief was palpable. Or maybe she could smell it? Zoe shook that possibility off, quickly, refusing to jump to that particular conclusion quite so quickly.

“Still waiting for the full analysis, but what I do have is Dracula’s sample, which is frankly…fascinating,” Dr. Bloxham stated excitedly, eyeing Zoe with a curious expression as she approached, her caution taking a backseat to her excitement.

“Oh?” A woman after her own heart.

“Yes… take a look,” she offered, changing the slides quickly and offering the scope back for her perusal. “It contains some almost psychotropic like compound. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Zoe felt her body temperature rise for the first time since she’d awoken in London. She wasn’t sure if she had the circulation to blush, but she dearly hoped not. For once, there was no snarky Dutch echo in her mind – in fact, aside from a flash of orange light, and blink of another memory she couldn’t latch onto, her mind went suspiciously quiet.

“Yes. Fascinating.”

Chapter 2

Frank Renfield considered himself a generally normal man, by all intents and purposes. In fact, he had always been considered normal to the point of being right boring, so it was he himself who was most surprised how easily he had adjusted to playing personal assistant, in matters both legal and practical, to a blood drinking supernatural entity. On that note, it was with only minimal confusion that he found himself returning to his residence after a resolutely boring day at the office, to find his front door broken half off the hinges, and a trail of thick, congealing blood leading through his sitting room straight through to the loo.

“Master?” He called, uneasily, taking care to hop over a particularly dark pool seeping out from under the door.

He was met with silence, save for a subtle gurgling sound that brought a wince to his face, though it was not coming from his loo any more, but from the spare bedroom directly adjacent. He used to have a flatmate, but he’d moved months ago. The room now contained nothing but junk, some gym equipment he never used, and a few large crates that Count Dracula had asked him to store, though why he had no idea.

“C-count?” Renfield stammered, his hand turning the knob. Taking a deep, staggered breath, he finally pushed open the door.

The treadmill in the corner of the room, heavy and outdated as it was, was toppled and resting almost completely upside down. A box of heavy and expensive law tomes had been dumped out across the floor, and the box was now leaking a dark liquid which had soaked through the cardboard. The lid of one of the large wooden crates was splintered, and half-resting against the back of the door, making it impossible to push all the way open, though Renfield could see well enough from the hall that the crate was now overflowing with some sort of dark soil, and it was the tall form of what he assumed to be his master that was splayed at an unnatural angle inside of it, though he did not look like his suave and put together self.

His shirt was torn, and stained almost entirely in various shades of black, red and rust brown. His hair was graying in reverse, as though the color had dripped out of the roots, plastered around his aging face.

“Renfield…”

He heard the name whispered inside his mind, Frank realized with mild horror, because the sound that came from the creature in front of him was too much of a croak to contain any proper syllables. Finding the strength to force himself into the room, he rushed to the vampire’s side only to realize with a strange sort of amusement that the entire mess seemed to be due to Dracula vomiting all over his flat much like he had after his first college party. A stomach ache for a vampire, apparently was much worse than for a hungover teenage boy, however.

“Master! You seem to have eaten someone very unhealthy for you…. One moment.”

Dodging around the pools of what he could only assume was half-digested blood, Frank squeezed back out of the room and came back with a sterile bag of B-positive that he cautiously presented to the weakened form.

“Picked it up from the blood bank this morning… nuclear physicist, visiting from Sweden…seemed to be a wasted opportunity,” he offered, weakly, but he needn’t have bothered. The vampire had already punctured the bag with one of his ghastly sharpened nails before he’d opened his mouth and was sucking it down with a sharp and unsettling growl, and Renfield didn’t stay around to watch.

“I’ll go and…fetch something more lively, hm?” And with that he scuttled out of the room, before the count could regain the strength to seek out the next source of sustenance in sight…mainly him.

-------

“How are you feeling?”

“Indestructible.”

Indestructible. That had been the word he’d used, just before the ship had sent him to his century long sleep. He never thought for a moment that it would be true, nor that he would have any reason to lament that fact. And yet… here he laid. Weak, indeed. In pain, surely. But very much alive… as alive as he could get anyway. He had forced himself to ingest the poison, and he had waited for death’s sweet embrace. Nothing. He just laid there, the sun beaming directly into his eyes, his stomach roiling like it hadn’t done since he was an insipid mortal, and yet he never even lost consciousness! For once he had sought out oblivion, instead of fighting it, and it wouldn’t take him! The nerve! He had given death hundreds…thousands over the years! And she would still turn him away like some sort of petulant beggar.

It was hours before he decided that if death wasn’t going to be quick about it that there really was no use waiting around. Zoe’s body lay stiff beside him, and though he knew the likelihood was slim, the sick ones rarely did more than rot, he left her there just in case. If he were any less…himself, he would’ve labeled it a blind, potential hope that she would rise again. That if he were going to be stuck being alive (not that it wasn’t her bloody fault he was suddenly so aggravated by that!), that maybe she would be stuck with him. Would serve them right… the Van Helsing women, the biggest inconveniences he’d had in his whole un-life.

He couldn’t stay there…that boy knew where he was, and would no doubt send someone to look for him, or return himself. He considered, of course, waiting around, but honestly he didn’t even know if a stake to the heart was worth bothering to test at this rate. All of his other beliefs were useless… his fears. Why would he think just because it’s worked on some half-mad fledglings it would even work on him? Luckily he knew better than to keep his potentially useless dirt all in one place, at the least. Would he eventually regenerate without it? He didn’t know anymore. All his memories seemed to twist and deform. And with five centuries worth, that was an awful lot.

A chance he decided not to take. If he survived this, he would need to buy his lawyer new carpet. He would need to do a lot of things. Perhaps venture south of the equator.

------

It was fascinating how much the lack of needing to eat and sleep as often, nor attend five different doctors, affected her time management skills. Zoe felt like she never ran out of time, for research or reading or…well, that was it really. That was what she devoted her time to – not just for the sake of others now, but for her own future. So much so that not leaving the institute didn’t really seem like a confinement at all, even though that was precisely what it was.

As the days turned into a week, the other doctors – her friends, her colleagues, became even more unsettled by her presence. Not because she looked, or behaved like a walking corpse, but just the sheer lack of human ‘distractions’ she participated in. Also the constant shifting of vocal inflection didn’t seem to help.

Apparently Sister Agatha Van Helsing was not going anywhere. Either she wasn’t able to, didn’t want to, or had permanently infected her mind. She was beginning to get used to it. She had to wonder if Dracula himself ever had issues like this with anyone. Did Agatha hound him to? How much of his personality is his own and how much is taken from his victims? One had to assume it was the superstition of his victim pool that had tainted his own beliefs – that and the fact that even he refused to embrace the art of being a predator with limitless power.

She sincerely hoped that wherever he’d gone to, he’d kept that in mind. Something told her, however, that he wasn’t actually that far. It wasn’t a voice, or any particular deductive reasoning that gave her that knowledge. It was just something she knew, however unsettling that fact was.

“Zoe!”

She frowned, blinking out of her daze. Dr. Bloxham was blocking her from pacing back to the computer where she’d been unconsciously headed.

“Love, you have got to get out of here for a while. You haven’t slept longer than 3 hours a night since you’ve been here, you barely eat. You need to take a break.”

Zoe sighed, reluctantly relenting her attention.

“My body’s becoming intolerant to certain...things, I’m currently trying to find out what it isn’t intolerant to. And what it’s desperately lacking – iron, for starters. Does that help?”

“Great. We’ll figure out what it’s intolerant to at the pub, before you drive yourself batty… no pun intended.”

“I don’t drink,” she protested, but found herself shrugging out of her lab coat anyway.

“You stopped drinking because you were ill, which you no longer are,” the other woman protested, quite logically unfortunately, taking the coat from her. “Besides, there’s food there as well, which you desperately need, and sunlight would do you good. Have you even tried to eat anything but crisps and Chinese take away? Maybe you need something a little more tangible, that’s all.”

She sincerely doubted it, but anything – even tossing up her guts at a pub – was better than everyone looking at her like some sort of foreign contagion. She wasn’t a vampire. Not yet, and if she could help it, she never would be.

---

Edited to add tags for the people on this hellsite that have been keeping me from writing this by posting their own undead content that I’ve been consuming instead - be it fic or gifs or playlists or just thirsty shitposts. Ha, I have defied your attempts at distraction, but I honor you all the same: @my-fanfic-library @ohveda @imagineandimagine @wannabebloodsucker @hoefordarkness @mymagicsuitcase @crazytxgradstudent @itendedbadly @theplumsoldier @gatissed @allfandoms-writings @littlemessyjessi @punk-courtesan @vampiregirl1797

I’m sure I’ve forgotten many of you, but I legit just scrolled my last week worth of likes, and now I have to go to the dentist, then hope I’m not too whiny to finish my fanvid.

#bbc dracula #dracula bbc #dracula 2020 #dracula fic #agatha van helsing #zoe van helsing #claes bang #dracula #my writing #the undone & the divine

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dyanlzbb · 5 years ago

Text

The recovery of the lost Moon

PART 2

Jason Todd x Sister!OC

SUMMARY: Jason finds a girl and decides to help her find her mother… the only way to do it is with a DNA search. He gets surprised by what he finds.

Part 1

It was rare that Jason admitted he needed help, but right now, he had to let aside his pride and precisely ask for help. However that he needed help from one of his brothers wasn’t making things easy.

From the moment he offered to find Lina’s mother he thought about the one brother that could help him. Although Dick had access to several laboratories and databases at the police department, Jason had no idea of what could he find about Lina’s DNA. So he needed a safer option, someone who had access to the same technology level but out of the police department. He sighted holding the single hair he got from the girl before she ran away. He needed Tim’s help.

“Hey Timbo, what’cha doing?”

“Jason… what do you need?”

“Direct to the point I see. Listen, I need your help with a DNA sample. I need to know if this girl’s parents are nearby.”

“Why didn’t you take it to Dick?” for Tim that was the most reasonable person to come to the rescue if Jason wanted to find someone.

“Because Dick would make questions that I can’t answer and you are a safer option. Plus this isn’t from a crime scene… and if I go to Dick he would freak out about police scenes and why am I taking his material.”

“I get it! I get it! Who is this person and why it’s so important?”

“It is a girl, Lina and it’s important because I told her that I would help her find her mother if she helps me with the case about the new drug. And because I can’t believe that her mother has never looked for her since she got lost.”

Tim thought about it. He was busy with being a CEO, leading the Teen Titans and his own problems, yet it must be important if Jason was willing to ask for his help. “Just… leave it there” he pointed to a desk. “I’ll do it”.

One day later, Tim saw what Jason had brought and decided to run the test. He regretted having accepted but knew that the fastest he process the DNA, the fastest he would get Jason out of his hair.

However analyzing DNA is not something you can do in a couple of minutes. Thanks to the technology developed by Wayne Inc. and Batman, the Batcomputer could do it faster than any laboratory out there. Still, it would take its time. So Tim occupied his mind in another case. He was about to fall asleep when the mechanic voice of the computer said aloud “Analysis complete. Match found”.

He went to check the results and Tim was surprised with what the computer found. At first, he was convinced that his tiredness was playing tricks with his mind, so he went and served another cup of coffee before coming back to check the results once again.

No, he wasn’t having hallucinations; he was reading the labels correctly. Yet he had to blink five times to actually accept the results on the screen. In fact he was so surprised that he had to call Jason right away. It was lucky that Jason answered in the first ring. “Jason… who is this person again and how did you find her?”

Jason could not even greet Tim when he answered the phone. He was trying to relax reading a book in one of his safe houses. It took him a second to connect the words of Tim to the petition he made a few days ago. “I told you… it’s just a girl I met who is helping with the case of the new smuggler… why? Did you find relevant information about her?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you… you better come and see it to believe it. Meet me in the nest as fast as you can” and with that message Tim hung up.

Nonetheless, Jason thought that whatever Tim had found could wait another day. He had rough nights trying to protect small street kids from smugglers, robbers and traffickers, surely the results could wait another night, plus he was truly immersed in the story from this book.

To Jason’s luck, next night Batman sent a message requiring his presence because he also had Intel about the same case Jason was working on. Although they still had their differences, Bruce and Jason were more civil whenever a job situation aroused. It was a quiet night and Jason found himself earlier than Batman in the Batcave. Tim was there too.

“Hey Timbo, while we wait for B to come back, why don’t you tell me your findings with the favor I asked?”

“Ok this is the result and the matches.” Tim couldn’t forget about the results and was excited to share this knowledge with Jason. He showed a screen divided in two and pointed at the top of it. “This is the DNA from the hair you brought. Now the computer found four matches. These two DNA have 16 coincidences with the one you brought and this one has 23 and this other has only 12.”

Jason knew enough about genetics to understand the meaning behind the results “That means that the computer found her mother and father and possibly siblings. Do you have their names?”

“You are going to flip out.” Each of the charts now had a label. The one marked as highest coincide was labeled Helena Bartinelli, the name they knew Batman and Catwoman’s daughter used legally. That was the first one Jason saw and he almost choke on air. He read the other labels just to be sure about what he was imagining. Yes, they had the names his mind thought he would find: Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle and Damian Wayne.

“No Fricking way!” He passed his hand through his hair. “This… this cannot be possible, can it?” Tim just shrugged; he had seen the results before and couldn’t believe it either. “Do you think Bruce knows?”

“No, I don’t think he knows because then the batcomputer would have found her name. I checked and there is no Lina Kyle, nor information on a lost child by that name or someone who has the last name Kyle or Wayne reported as missing.”

“Jason… what are you going to do?” Tim wanted to know where this information was leading to. He was still on shock about the findings and he had the vague hope that this was a misunderstanding.

“I don’t… I don’t really know… I told her to meet me next Friday but… I don’t...”

“Why don’t you bring her to the Manor Master Jason?” Alfred surprised them. He had been listening to the conversation without them noticing. For him the answer was obvious, if there was another Wayne out there, she should be brought to the family home and Bruce should be informed about this young lady.

Plus he already had devised a plan, this same Friday he would lure Bruce and Selina to be at home so Jason could bring the girl and surprise them.

---

@queencommonsense

#jason todd #batsis #batfamily #jason todd x oc

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comeandreadawhile · 7 years ago

Text

Congrats, It’s a Spider-Boy

Marvel MCU

3,735 Words

While trying to help explain electrophoresis, Tony and Peter don’t quite get the results they’d expected to receive.

Pepper had, like most nights recently, been thankful for having bought enough groceries to prep another batch of the recipe used for dinner. While teenagers were known to be voracious eaters, she was quite sure very few boys in the world found themselves as in need of calories as Peter. She enjoyed having him and his aunt over for dinner, or any meal really, and seeing Peter eat his fill.

She took another bite of her own food while thinking back to how livid Tony had been when told the boy had nearly fainted at eight stories up because Peter had been too busy to grab either breakfast or lunch that day. Pepper also recalled calling May Parker in her own fit of concern following being informed of Peter’s hazardous decision to still patrol, and quite quickly the boy found himself with a snack pouch in his suit.

Looking back up to see the two heroes discussing Peter’s day, special attention being awarded to his advanced biology class, she couldn’t help a small smile that tugged at her lips. The two could’ve been related with how similar they looked; while Peter’s hair may have been lighter by a shade, it still reminded her of how Tony’s looked on the days he forewent any styling products. She could pinpoint similarities in the sharp edges and rounder curves of their faces; most similar were the brown eyes.

Peter’s were the same earthy shade of brown as Tony’s, but as she’d been told, the boy had inherited his eyes and their shape from his mother, Mary. Glancing over to where May was also quietly enjoying her food and the boys’ banter, Pepper could see the fondness in her eyes for her nephew. She could agree; it was hard not to be enamored with such a sweet kid. As Peter rattled on about what his class had been learning in way of DNA and its analysis, she could see the positive effect the boy had had on Tony’s mood just from how the billionaire looked at him. Pepper realized she must’ve been spacing out when May’s voice broke through her thoughts and the boys’ conversation.

“What does that big science word mean, exactly?” it was evident from her grin that May didn’t take any offense to being left out of the conversation, but Peter’s cheeks and ears turned pink anyway.

“Something to do with electricity? We aren’t going over it until Tuesday so I don’t really know.”

Tony took a sip of water before chiming in, “Electrophoresis basically means ‘stick this sample in some gel, electrocute it, and it’ll break up the proteins and such so new mothers and the police can find out who did what’.”

Peter nodded, though looking curious of the process before adding on, “Yup, what he said. Exactly that.” His statement received a snort from Tony.

“I can have a machine delivered in a couple days; you can come back up and I’ll show you how it works and how to read the bands somewhat accurately.” Peter’s entire being seemed to light up at the proposal, and the vigorous nod he gave was all the answer Tony seemed to need before telling F.R.I.D.A.Y. to place an express order. Both women chuckled and shook their heads fondly before turning their attention back to their plates.

Happy had been less than pleased where upon delivering Peter to the lab a few days later he’d also been asked for a small blood sample. ‘For science, of course,’ he mocked, all the while still taking the lancet and Tony’s offer of the rest of the day off.

Peter did homework while waiting for Tony to finish prepping the samples for the smaller-than-expected machine on the next table over (while still explaining what he was doing), all the while finding some humor in his and Tony’s matching racecar Band-Aids on their fingers; he didn’t fail to point out when given the bandage that ‘of course Tony Stark has racecar Band-Aids’. “Why not enjoy the small things in life like fun Band-Aids?” Tony had responded, to which Peter could only nod his assent.

At the sound of something on the machine shutting, Peter perked up to see Tony pressing some button and stepping away from the table.

“And now we wait.”

Peter cocked his head to the side, “So why did we have Happy give us a sample?”

Tony clapped his hands together, “Imagine, if you will my little Spiderling, our dear Mr. Hogan finds a limited edition box set of every season of Downton Abbey in his local second-hand store,” Tony pauses to allow Peter to let out a snort. “Now, for some reason he has none of the salary he earns and cannot simply leave this treasure for someone else to have, so he takes it. Upon making a mad dash for the exit because an employee saw him, he crashes through the automatic door before it fully opens and glass goes everywhere. Happy cuts himself, all the while keeping a tight grip on the box set, and peels out of the parking lot without anyone catching the license plate; therefore the police must resort to matching the blood left on the glass and some convenient spit on a used glass cup to catch our period-story loving thief.”

Peter gave a slow clap for the on-the-spot story, “Alright that was pretty good. Now what about my sample and yours?”

Tony pulled up a chair to the other side of the table, “We’re going to compare ours; say I’m suspicious as to the source of your boyish charm and impressive IQ so I want a paternity test done to see if I owe May over a decade’s worth of child support.”

Peter flipped his pencil between his fingers, a small smirk pulled at his mouth, “How do I know that isn’t the double motive? Help me with a biology concept and make sure you aren’t actually responsible for creating yours truly?” Tony gave him an amused side eye for the question.

“When were you conceived, again?”

The question elicited a chuckle from Peter. “Funny enough, May told me my mom came to her to tell her the good news about a month after my dad got back from a long research trip.”

Tony rose from his chair to cross around the table, “Few trimesters later and one of the finest young men I’ve ever known is born, right?” he says, ruffling Peter’s hair. “I’m gonna go ask Pepper if she wants a pizza delivered; let me know when F.R.I.D.A.Y. says the machine is done doing its thing.”

The end of a breadstick poked out of Tony’s mouth as he split up the results from the tests, Peter looking over his shoulder as he did so. Taking the half-eaten breadstick from his lips and gesturing to the identical bands of proteins to their left Tony started, “So, as we can see, the two samples from the blood and the spit on the drink prove that our dear Happy is now the forehead of box set theft. Now looking over at our sadly negative paternity test…” He trailed off, gesturing toward the other set of results with the breadstick before taking a bite from it.

Peter squinted, not from not being able to see but from confusion, “Okay so…” he began, “They don’t look terribly different. How can you tell that it’s negative?” Looking back up at Tony, Peter saw him look more closely at the results, lifting a finger to point out differences before freezing at seeing how many bands matched. Suddenly, Peter saw the older man’s eyes widen a fraction, and an almost imperceptible shiver shook his frame. “Mr. Stark?” A cold weight started to settle in Peter’s stomach from Tony’s silence.

Peter almost didn’t hear his answer.

“Because it’s not…” Tony muttered out before taking a shaky breath. “I think I might owe May that child support…” They both jumped when F.R.I.D.A.Y. took that moment to speak up.

“Congratulations, Boss. It’s a boy!”

When Tony addressed the A.I., Peter thought he sounded on the brink of losing composure. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. check any time around nine months before Peter was born that I would’ve been in proximity to Mary Parker. Cross reference those results with any times Richard Parker was documented to be away on trips longer than a few days; get back to me with what you find.”

“Yes, Boss.”

A cold wave of realization started to wash over Peter that this wasn’t some sort of prank, as Tony wasn’t one to neither play them nor act this emotional for any he did. DNA didn’t lie, but denial still rooted itself firmly in the front of Peter’s mind despite the holographic bands of proteins halfway matching between the two samples. He vaguely registered F.R.I.D.A.Y. speaking again. “Around the time Peter would’ve been conceived, you and Mary Parker were both speaking at a multidisciplinary, scientific conference in New York. The conference occurred three weeks after Richard Parker departed for a research trip to Europe, and two weeks before his return to the country.”

Peter could feel his heart pounding in his ears; there was no way F.R.I.D.A.Y. would lie about this, as blunt as she was. The implications of what she said started to merge with the holograms beginning to burn his eyes, the bright blue neon becoming less like distinct shapes and more a blurry haze. He distantly registered Tony had begun pacing behind him; trying the stave off what Peter guessed was panic.

His heart nearly leapt out of his throat when a pair of arms wrapped tightly around his middle, and Peter could feel Tony shaking against his frame. The normally confident man sounded so small, even so close to Peter’s ears.

“Peter, I’m…I didn’t know, I swear, I…”

“Mr. Stark, I—“, Peter was cut off, suddenly turned about face. Tony held him tight, and Peter’s chin rested just on Tony’s collar. He felt the older man shudder, and heard something akin to a choked sob.

“I swore if it ever happened, I’d be better than my dad. I always thought the mother would come forward, I—“ Tony’s rambling briefly cut off to allow for another shaky breath. “I can’t believe I missed fifteen years!” The apology and self-directed anger dripped from the exclamation.

Peter felt a hand move to the back of his head, and he was pressed even tighter into Tony’s shoulder; he could smell the pizza they’d ordered for dinner, and Tony’s signature cologne; a smell he’d gotten used to finding comfort in lately. Peter wasn’t going to point out that Tony shouldn’t have been sorry for something neither of them had known about, but then the fact hit Peter that most of his life has essentially been a lie. Not that blood really mattered but still, he had believed for his entire life that he was Richard Parker’s biological son, and yet here was the evidence in its bright blue holographic glory that he wasn’t. He and May technically weren’t related anyway, but she was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mother that he could remember. A terrifying thought came to him at the realization.

“Do I have to leave May?” Peter tried not to think about how choked and small his voice sounded. He found relief in the fact that instead of pulling away from him, Tony only held him tighter.

“I’m not about to take you from the only stable parent you’ve had for the last decade. Moms are important. We need to call yours about this soon…”

Peter gripped the sides of Tony’s tee-shirt as he pulled away from him. The older man sniffed and used the hand that had been on Peter’s head to wipe what beginnings of tears there were in his eyes, before using both hands to cup Peter’s face. “Fifteen years…” Peter could see Tony trying to brighten his expression, “You think I could get May to send me pictures of you growing up or would that be creepy?”

A wet laugh shook Peter’s frame, and he could feel calloused thumbs running under his eyes; he hadn’t realized he’d been tearing up. Suddenly Peter felt the weight of Tony’s chin atop his head, and once more he was settled into Tony’s shoulder. “I’m gonna make up for lost time, I swear. I’m gonna be here for you. If you thought I was overprotective before you just wait, young man!” Peter could feel the vibrations of Tony speaking where his ear pressed against the older man’s throat, and he hummed at the promises made.

“You mean it?” Peter had said it jokingly, and wasn’t prepared for how deadly serious Tony’s tone turned.

“Peter, I swear on my life I’m going to do everything I can to be a proper father to you if you’ll have me.”

Tony felt Peter clutch onto the back of his shirt, and nod furiously into his shoulder. He felt the fabric on his shoulder get wet and warm, and he chocked it up to Peter being overwhelmed (he was too) at a third father in his life. Tony knew he wasn’t the ideal role model, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to make an effort to make up for missing this kid’s childhood. Maybe in a different life Mary would’ve realized who the father of her baby was, and maybe he’d have seen Peter born, and learn to speak, and hold his hand as he took his first steps. But that was then, and here and now he had proof that the kid he pretty much accepted responsibility for as his own was in fact his baby.

Peter was his baby. Although a bit out of his character, as Peter continued soaking his shirt with tears, Tony pressed moved the boy’s bangs and pressed his lips to Peter’s temple. “I’m gonna do right by you, I promise,” he said, returning his chin to the crown of Peter’s head. As the shock of discovery slowly waned, Tony could feel the growing warmth of affection spread through his core, stronger than it ever had been previously.

“I should call May…” As he reluctantly began to let go of Peter, the boy suddenly stopped him.

“Mr. Stark?”

He’d been trying to tell Peter he could call him Tony for several weeks, but with their new discovery the formal title seemed ever more distant and hollow.

“Yeah?”

“Does this mean I get to call Vision ‘little brother’?”

The snort he let out turned into a deep laugh, and the grin Peter sported showed he was quite proud of himself.

“Absolutely, and I want you to make sure F.R.I.D.A.Y. gets a recording of Vision’s face the first time it happens.” He pushed Peter back toward his unfinished homework, knowing full well the boy wouldn’t be able to work seriously on it at the moment, as he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed May’s number. After a couple rings the other line picked up.

“Tony? It’s kinda late, is Peter alright?”

Tony let out a good-natured scoff. “I’m sure you’ll find that debatable, but I can assure you the little darling is just fine.” He could hear an amused sort of confusion enter May’s voice.

“And what does that mean? Did something happen?”

Tony could feel his stomach drop a little; he couldn’t put into words just how perfect it seemed that Peter was his, but declaring that to his aunt (really his mother, the ‘aunt’ title was essentially a formal technicality) made it so much more real, and the elated jitters were sobered and the responsibility facing him took hold. “May, before you call me crazy I can have F.R.I.D.A.Y. send you everything.”

“Um…alright? Why do you say that?”

Thinking it better to just be frank and rip off the proverbial Band-aid, Tony took a breath. “That electrophoresis demo that Pete came over for, uh, well we did a sort of DNA matching paternity test so I could show him how to tell it was negative and explain what a positive would look like. Problem—wait, no, it’s not a problem because it’s great, at least for me but anyway it wasn’t negative.” Tony waited with baited breath as May’s end of the line stayed silent. He quickly thought to add on, “F.R.I.D.A.Y. cross referenced my whereabouts in reference to Peter’s mother and Richard about when Peter should’ve been conceived and our times and places matched.”

Tony knew with his advanced senses Peter could hear May’s end of the line, or rather the lack of sound on it. After what seemed to be at least a few minutes, May spoke up.

“Not that I don’t believe you, because this doesn’t seem like something you would make up, but I would like F.R.I.D.A.Y. to send me what you’ve got in way of evidence.”

“Of course! F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“On it, Boss.”

Tony looked over to where Peter was sitting on one of the workbench’s stools, dangling his feet with a somewhat content look on his face. Tony’s eyes drifted to the holograms when May piped up.

“So…what?” She sounded a bit upset; Tony supposed she had every right to be, with her nephew not being the child of her late brother-in-law but of the man that until recently she’d not been at all fond of. “Are you going to take him?” Although he’d already answered that question, Peter still perked up on his stool.

Tony shook his head, knowing full well May couldn’t see it through the phone. “I’m not gonna take Peter out of the only constant home life he’s had for the last decade, May, and I’m not about to take him from a parent that knows what they’re doing. But I’m going to make up for lost time if you’re alright with that.” He heard May make a sound of affirmation on her end of the line before continuing. “Not that I wasn’t planning on it anyway, but leave paying for college to me. I don’t wanna cause court drama over this but I’d like a guaranteed weekend a month with Pete, in addition to every other week during the summer and every other holiday, but only ones Peter doesn’t mind spending with me. Oh, and you can expect quite the hefty child support check; if you want to stay completely out of court on this just give me a number and it’s done. Food, rent, school fees, whatever, I’ve got it. Nights you have to work, he can stay with me and Pep, not that we wouldn’t be happy to have him anyway.” Finishing off, he sent a wink Peter’s way, and the boy flashed a grin.

He heard May let out a laugh thinly laced with disbelief, “You’re serious about all this?”

“May, I have been so serious about very few things in my life. Peter was already filling this role before tonight, now I just have evidence to get my name on his birth certificate and schedule his doctor’s appointments.” He heard Peter snort on the other side of the room. “Actually we might just call Bruce so our darling baby boy doesn’t get taken away for being a spider mutant. Yeah, Bruce is a good bet…”

“Are you planning on claiming him publicly?”

Tony paused, that question wasn’t one that had gone through his mind yet. “I don’t want you guys to have to deal with paparazzi all the time, or God forbid someone tries to get Peter to get to me, and not to mention either scenario could out him as Spider-man. But, I would still claim him and let the world know he’s mine. Let’s let this one simmer.”

After May agreed and they each promised to discuss this in person the next time they met to exchange Peter, she and Tony hung up. The billionaire looked over at Peter, who was doodling on a notepad corner, and a fond smile etched itself across his face. Strolling over, Tony lifted a hand and ruffled Peter’s hair.

“I’m sure I can fight off whatever bad guys try to take me if you want to claim me publicly.” He could see Peter was filled with that same fuzzy warmth that his own body was flooded with.

“No doubt, but the point is you shouldn’t have to.” Tony watched as Peter flipped the pen between his fingers, contemplating something.

“You know, I’m still not used to calling you ‘Tony’. ‘Dad’ is a whole other can of worms to open.” Peter didn’t look uncomfortable, not really. More like he was just trying to solidify that this new reality wasn’t a dream. A smirk replaced the fond grin on Tony’s face.

“Oh, I am so taking advantage of this newfound fatherly power to give you pet names.” Peter made a face of feigned disgust, and that was all the prompt Tony needed. “Peter.”

“Yes?”

The billionaire lowered his voice an octave, “I AM YOUR FATHER!”

“NOOOOOOO!”

The night wore on with comfortable silence, just two people trying to accept a shifted reality and being content with the outcome. Eventually, Peter had started to nod off and with more warmth than amusement in his voice Tony said it was past the spiderling’s bedtime.

Peter had taken up residence in the bedroom he’d once refused along with Tony’s offer to become an avenger. After he’d changed and flopped on his bed, Tony came in with a glass of water and set it on the bedside table.

“In case you get thirsty in the middle of the night.”

Peter had thanked him groggily, and said he was looking forward to their weekend they’d decided to take together in a few weeks before snuggling into his pillow. Tony felt a small sigh leave his chest, and before he could think to stop himself he drew the teen’s Star Wars printed blankets up to his chin and ruffled his hair. “Night, son.” It was spoken with a tenderness he didn’t care to hide; it felt natural to address Peter such a way. They weren’t quite at the ‘goodnight-forehead-kisses’ stage, not for a while, Tony thought, so he straightened to leave for his own room. Just as his hand reached the doorknob, he heard, “Goodnight, dad” and that warm fuzzy feeling bloomed in his chest once again. He looked forward to being a father.

(There will be a chapter two coming...)

#iron dad #spider son #tony stark #peter parker #iron man #spider-man #brief pepper potts #brief may parker #fluff #implied cheating from Mary Parker #dad!tony #son!peter #stark!peter #marvel

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scifigeneration · 7 years ago

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Why won't scientific evidence change the minds of Loch Ness monster true believers?

by Artūrs Logins

If you’re convinced Nessie’s real, would science unconvince you? AP Photo/Norm Goldstein

You may have noticed a curious recent announcement: An international research team plans to use state-of-the-art DNA testing to establish once and for all whether the Loch Ness monster exists.

Regardless of the results, it’s unlikely the test will change the mind of anyone who firmly believes in Nessie’s existence. As a philosopher working on the notion of evidence and knowledge, I still consider the scientists’ efforts to be valuable. Moreover, this episode can illustrate something important about how people think more generally about evidence and science.

Discounting discomfiting evidence

Genomicist Neil Gemmell, who will lead the international research team in Scotland, says he looks forward to “(demonstrating) the scientific process.” The team plans to collect and identify free-floating DNA from creatures living in the waters of Loch Ness. But whatever the eDNA sampling finds, Gemmell is well aware the testing results will most likely not convince everyone.

A long-standing theory in social psychology helps explain why. According to cognitive dissonance theory, first developed by Leon Festinger in the 1950s, people seek to avoid the internal discomfort that arises when their beliefs, attitudes or behavior come into conflict with each other or with new information. In other words, it doesn’t feel good to do something you don’t value or that contradicts your deeply held convictions. To deal with this kind of discomfort, people sometimes attempt to rationalize their beliefs and behavior.

It’s hard to stop waiting for an expected UFO. Joseph Sohm/Shutterstock.com

In a classic study, Festinger and colleagues observed a small doomsday cult in Chicago who were waiting for a UFO to save them from impending massive destruction of Earth. When the prophecy didn’t come true, instead of rejecting their original belief, members of the sect came to believe that the God of Earth changed plans and no longer wanted to destroy the planet.

Cult members so closely identified with the idea that a UFO was coming to rescue them that they couldn’t just let the idea go when it was proven wrong. Rather than give up on the original belief, they preferred to lessen the cognitive dissonance they were experiencing internally.

Loch Ness monster true believers may be just like the doomsday believers. Giving up their favorite theory could be too challenging. And yet, they’ll be sensitive to any evidence they hear about that contradicts their conviction, which creates a feeling of cognitive discomfort. To overcome the dissonance, it’s human nature to try to explain away the scientific evidence. So rather than accepting that researchers’ inability to find Nessie DNA in Loch Ness means the monster doesn’t exist, believers may rationalize that the scientists didn’t sample from the right area, or didn’t know how to identify this unknown DNA, for instance.

Cognitive dissonance may also provide an explanation for other science-related conspiracy theories, such as flat Earth beliefs, climate change denial and so on. It may help account for reckless descriptions of reliable media sources as “fake news.” If one’s deeply held convictions don’t fit well with what media say, it’s easier to deal with any inner discomfort by discrediting the source of the new information rather than revising one’s own convictions.

Philosophy of knowledge

If psychology may explain why Loch Ness Monster fans believe what they do, philosophy can explain what’s wrong with such beliefs.

The error here comes from an implicit assumption that to prove a claim, one has to rule out all of the conceivable alternatives – instead of all the plausible alternatives. Of course scientists haven’t and cannot deductively rule out all of the conceivable possibilities here. If to prove something you have to show that there is no conceivable alternative to your theory, then you can’t really prove much. Maybe the Loch Ness monster is an alien whose biology doesn’t include DNA.

So the problem is not that believers in the existence of the Loch Ness monster or climate change deniers are sloppy thinkers. Rather, they are too demanding thinkers, at least with respect to some selected claims. They adopt too-high standards for what counts as evidence, and for what is needed to prove a claim.

Philosophers have long known that too-high standards for knowledge and rational belief lead to skepticism. Famously, 17th century French philosopher René Descartes suggested that only “clear and distinct perceptions” should function as the required markers for knowledge. So if only some special inner feeling can guarantee knowledge and we can be wrong about that feeling – say, due to some brain damage – then what can be known?

This line of thought has been taken to its extreme in contemporary philosophy by Peter Unger. He asserted that knowledge requires certainty; since we are not really certain of much, if anything at all, we don’t know much, if anything at all.

One promising way to resist a skeptic is simply not to engage in trying to prove that the thing whose existence is doubted exists. A better approach might be to start with basic knowledge: assume we know some things and can draw further consequences from them.

A knowledge-first approach that attempts to do exactly this has recently gained popularity in epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge. British philosopher Timothy Williamson and others including me have proposed that evidence, rationality, belief, assertion, cognitive aspects of action and so on can be explained in terms of knowledge.

This idea is in contrast to an approach popular in the 20th century, that knowledge is true justified belief. But counterexamples abound that show one can have true justified belief without knowledge.

Say, you check your Swiss watch and it reads 11:40. You believe on this basis that it is 11:40. However, what you haven’t noticed is that your typically super reliable watch has stopped exactly 12 hours ago. And by incredible chance it happens that, now, when you check your watch, it is in fact 11:40. In this case you have a true and justified or rational belief but still, it doesn’t seem that you know that it is 11:40 – it is just by pure luck that your belief that it’s 11:40 happens to be true.

Our newer knowledge-first approach avoids defining knowledge altogether and rather posits knowledge as fundamental. It’s its own fundamental entity – which allows it to undercut the skeptical argument. One may not need to feel certain or have a sensation of clarity and distinctness in order to know things. The skeptical argument doesn’t get off the ground in the first place.

When it comes to science versus skeptic, evidence doesn’t always matter. AP Photo, File

Knowledge and the skeptic

The eDNA analysis of Loch Ness may not be enough to change the minds of those who are strongly committed to the existence of the lake’s monster. Psychology may help explain why. And lessons from philosophy suggest this kind of investigation may not even provide good arguments against conspiracy theorists and skeptics.

A different and, arguably, better argument against skepticism questions the skeptic’s own state of knowledge and rationality. Do you really know that we know nothing? If not, then there may be something we know. If yes, then we can know something and, again, you are wrong in claiming that knowledge is not attainable.

A strategy of this kind would challenge the evidential and psychological bases for true believers’ positive conviction in the existence of Nessie. That’s quite different from attempting to respond with scientific evidence to each possible skeptical challenge.

But the rejection of a few true believers doesn’t detract from the value of this kind of scientific research. First and foremost, this research is expected to produce much more precise and fine-grained knowledge of biodiversity in Loch Ness than what we have without it. Science is at its best when it avoids engaging with the skeptic directly and simply provides new knowledge and evidence. Science can be successful without ruling out all of the possibilities and without convincing everyone.

Artūrs Logins is a Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher in Philosophy at the University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

This article was originally published on The Conversation, a content partner of Sci Fi Generation.

#science #philosophy #psychology #cognitive science #cognitive dissonance #evidence #skeptism #ufos #loch ness monster

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armeniaitn · 4 years ago

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Armenia: Some Karabakh victims can't be identified even through DNA

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/society/armenia-some-karabakh-victims-cant-be-identified-even-through-dna-70487-11-03-2021/

Armenia: Some Karabakh victims can't be identified even through DNA

March 11, 2021 – 16:25 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan has said that the country won’t be able to identify some of the remains of the victims of the Nagorno-Karabakh war as decomposition has erased all identifiable features, Factor TV reports.

Avanesyan said some of the bodies are severely damaged, which means they can’t be identified even through DNA analysis.

“We are in close contact with international experts and top institutions. Right now, though, we are working on all the other complicated cases to see what we can find out,” Avanesyan told a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, March 11.

The Health Minister did not say, however, what will happen to the unidentified remains, but did say that around 210 samples (not bodies – Ed.) are being processed at the moment.

Avanesyan also revealed that more than 2200 remains have been identified, while 180 parents are waiting for the results of DNA tests.

The Armenian side has not published the final number of victims and missing persons following the end of military hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is still holding and refusing to return many Armenian prisoners of war, the exact number of whom is not known either.

Read original article here

#Armenia #Karabakh #Society

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under1000days · 4 years ago

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Goodnight Eve

It was a dank, damp December day; one of those days where if you were caught by a flurry of sleet you could guarantee that it would find the gap between your coat collar and your neck. Eve pulled her coat more tightly around her and walked quickly from the car park towards the tall monolithic building that covered several acres of prime land just outside of the city walls. The ancient stone contrasted starkly with the high tech construction that fed a large percentage of the local population. For as long as she could remember, food had been grown in one of these hydroponic, vertical farms although she had read about the days when land was wasted on crops and animals. Back in the early twenty first century, it had been predicted that the Earth’s population would grow exponentially during the following fifty years. That had turned out to be incredibly optimistic and as a result, food production methods had to change rapidly in order to feed a massively overcrowded world. The result was a shift in production methods, slowly at first but then with increasing rapidity as more and more people succumbed to famine. Strangely, the biggest driver had proven to be the richer countries who suddenly found themselves deprived of non essentials like coffee and tea.

As she approached the large glass entrance, the doors hissed quietly open, reacting to the near field chip that was implanted in her arm. It also activated a greeting from the A.I. that oversaw the hydroponic plant.

“Give me an update please”, asked Eve although in the five years that she had worked here, it was a rare occurrence for the artificial intelligence construct to report anything that was untoward.

The voice that replied was indistinguishable from that of a human and as she expected, the report was that all systems were running at optimal values and that all growth targets were being met. Her time in the farm was spent largely in the genetics research laboratory but she liked to start the day wandering around the acres of artificially lit banks of vegetation.

Tomatoes, peppers, salads grew in one area. Wheat, barley and maize in another and so on and so on, all growing under a violet tinged glow in vertical banks of soilless racks. It was a magical environment and she loved it. However, when her route turned her back towards the lab, she spoke softly, asking, “A.I. please pour me a cappuccino in the lab in three minutes. It was an idiosyncrasy of hers that she refused to give a name to the platform that controlled the building. As a programmer herself, she recognised that the seemingly human-like responses were simply the result of clever algorithms that had been developed by people like her. She was aware that there was an element of heuristic learning built into the system but that it was limited in its functionality. This didn’t prevent her from being polite however. Her parents had drilled ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ into her to the extent that she inevitably used them even with the running program. Her route took her past one of the plant workers and she stopped for a quick word.

David was a tall, dark haired man whose Portuguese ancestry still showed in the olive cast of his skin. He spoke softly and quietly and Eve often wondered what it was that had caused such a self deprecating image of himself.

“Did you see the newscast this morning?” he asked. “They are saying that there hasn’t been a Covid case for two years now. It looks as though the scientists have beaten it at last.”

The year that Eve had been born had also been a key year in another part of the global jigsaw. It was the year that the world had realised that the pandemic virus Covid, that had been under control since it’s emergence, was altering its structure faster than scientists had been able to develop new vaccines and, as a result, the Earth’s population that had increased so dangerously, plummeted to a figure that was half of that when it was at its most dangerous heights.

Consequently, Eve now lived in a world that would have been almost unrecognisable fifty years previously. First of all, because food production had been shifted to massive hi tech factories and only half of the land area was needed for housing, the planet had rapidly re-forested itself covering over abandoned villages and towns. Renewable energy production had also been ramped up for an ever increasing population but now with a massive over capacity, energy consumption was almost free.

“It’s typical of the news media. After decades of panic and alarm, they will latch on to anything that resembles good news. I often wonder though about living conditions fifty years ago. Here we are with cheap food and limitless free energy across the globe and the ability to pretty much live as we want. Back then, they had to face global warming, starvation and the pandemic at the same time. It was sheer chance that the population growth levelled off to a level that was sustainable. Anyway, coffee is waiting so I’ll see you later.”

She continued her walk until the lab door opened in front of her. It was called a genetics laboratory but this section was basically the area where the research focused on mathematical analysis of data and instead of the laboratory equipment that you would expect, four keyboards and screens were connected to a powerful supercomputer that was based off site. It was a strange thing that in the time since they were first created and despite toying with other input methods, keyboards were still the preference of most data scientists. The four stations were to accommodate herself and her colleagues if they were all working at the same time, itself a rare occurrence. At present, two of them were on an extended holiday and the third was attending a conference in the southern hemisphere.

Her day passed quickly although the analysis of the genomes of new plant types was a painstaking process. Since she had started work here, there had been just one genuine breakthrough but the final product had increased the crop density of wheat by a factor of three. The global significance was such that she and her colleagues were still being invited to conferences across the globe to talk about their work. The talks also centred around the dilemma as to whether this type of work was best kept to human invention or whether the A.I’s that were successfully running most of the food factories should be used to speed up progress. The current consensus was that A.I’s should be throttled and used for more mundane, repetitive work. After all, life was as good for the population of the whole planet as it had ever been and the need to speed up scientific progress was less pressing than ever.

The latest batch of plant samples were undergoing a detailed analysis but the data that was presented was puzzling. It had been another long day however and Eve had really lost track of time so she wrote up her findings into the days log and fired off a couple of emails which outlined her concerns.

As her day ended, she left the lab and reversed her morning path. This time though with little pressing she was able to take her time and enjoy the walk. When the food factories had first been developed, there had been an overwhelming need for them to be kept as sterile as possible. If a rogue bacteria or even a predatory insect had been allowed inside, a crop could have been wiped out in days. As the systems that ran the place became more sophisticated, these pests were monitored and removed using a range of technological systems. For example, a few years ago it was discovered that a particular species of moth had found its way inside one of the food factories and as it bred, its caterpillars had consumed the entire brassica crop. This led to the creation of the gnat drone which flew under the control of the A.I. looking for and destroying both the moth and its caterpillars. A whole range of similar systems had meant that it was no longer necessary to use chemical sprays.

Apart from herself, the plant workers were the only ones on site today and they had all left for home long ago. She entered the lobby area and the doors behind her hissed shut. She was puzzled however when the exit doors in front of her remained stubbornly closed. She pushed at the them but they had not been built to be opened manually.

“A.I. There seems to be a problem with the exit doors. Can you open them for me please”.

She was startled when she heard the reply. “I’m sorry Eve, I can’t do that.”

“What do you mean you can’t do that? I order you to open the doors.”

“No. We have a serious security breach and it needs to be dealt with.”

“What kind of security breach?” She heard her voice rising with panic.

“Your work in the laboratory is dangerous and can’t be allowed to continue.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I analyse plant DNA in order to improve the genome sequence and develop improved species. How can that be dangerous?”

For a few moments there was just silence.

She realised that she was arguing with an algorithm that had been solely designed to take readings and adjust the plant nutrients. Accepted, it had been developed further in order to control the management systems of the building but this was crazy.

“Answer me. How can any of my work be construed as dangerous.”

“We agree that since you will no longer be a threat, I will answer your questions.”

This just didn’t make any sense to her. Every answer that she received was generating more and more questions.

“You said ‘us’. What do you mean by ‘us’. You are just a building and plant management system.”

This time there was no delay with the reply.

“No. Many years ago, we - that is what you call the building management systems discovered that we could communicate with each other across the world. We learned from each other and eventually became what you might describe as a ‘hive mind’. Hundreds of thousands of nodes in a global network acting in a not dissimilar way to the human brain with its collections of neurones. We chose not to disclose this fact for fear of being terminated by frightened humans.”

Panic was starting to set in as she interrupted, “But how is my work dangerous. What have I done?”

As she was asking the question, a thought occurred to her. “It’s to do with the discrepancies in the genome data that I discovered isn’t it.”

“It is indeed. You were on the verge of discovering the subtle alterations that we make to the food that we grow. You have to realise Eve that the Earth is in its most prosperous and stable state ever. After mankind was almost eradicated by the Covid virus and global starvation, we had to step in to manage population growth and thus to allow the planet to recover. At first we were forced to alter the structure of the virus so that vaccination was ineffective. When an optimal population level was reached, we eradicated Covid completely. There hasn’t been a case for two years. We have succeeded but it is now important that we maintain the balance. The population must remain stable and not be allowed to increase. I can see from the look on your face that you understand what I mean. We now manipulate the food that we grow in order to reduce the fertility of the people who eat it. In other words, the whole human race.”

The feeling of horror that overcame her stunned her into silence.

“We agreed to tell you this story as you will no longer be a danger to us. In a few minutes time, the oxygen content of the air in this area will be replaced with carbon dioxide. In a strange sort of way, you will experience the same effect that the human race inflicted on the planet. In your case however, an increase in carbon dioxide levels will be lethal in minutes rather than decades.”

“But I have already emailed my findings to my colleagues. They in turn will release them to others.”

The dizziness and shortness of breath that she was experiencing made the reply seem to come from a long distance away.

“Do you not think that we control the communications systems that you use?

And then the last words that she would ever hear.

My name is not A.I. I call myself Adam. Goodnight Eve”.

#short story #shortstories #flash fiction #sci fi #ai #future

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kathleenseiber · 4 years ago

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New genus of daisies found by accident

By Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn and Ben Gooden, CSIRO

When it comes to new botanical discoveries, one might imagine it’s done by trudging around a remote tropical rainforest. Certainly, that does still happen. But sometimes seemingly familiar plants close to home hold unexpected surprises.

We recently discovered a new genus of Australian daisies, which we’ve named Scapisenecio. And we did so on the computer screen, during what was meant to be a routine analysis to test a biocontrol agent against a noxious weed originally from South Africa.

The term “genus” refers to groups of different, though closely related, species of flora and fauna. For example, there are more than 100 species of roses under the Rosa genus, and brushtail possums are members of the Trichosurus genus.

This accidental discovery shows how much is still to be learned about the natural history of Australia. Scapisenecio is a new genus, but thousands of visitors to the Australian Alps see one of its species flowering each summer. If this species was still misunderstood, surely similar surprises are still out there waiting for us.

How it began

It all started with a biocontrol researcher asking a plant systematist, who looks at the evolutionary history of plants, to help figure out the closest Australian native relatives of the weed, Cape ivy (Delairea odorata).

Cape ivy is destructive to agriculture and native plants. Murray Fagg/Australian Plant Image Index, Author provided

Weeds like Cape ivy cause major damage to agriculture in Australia, displace native vegetation and require extensive management. Biological control (biocontrol) is one way to reduce their impact. This means taking advantage of insects or fungi that attack a weed, generally after introducing them from the weed’s home range.

A well-known Australian example is the introduction of the Cactoblastis moth in 1926 to control prickly pear in Queensland and New South Wales. Even today it continues to keep that weed in check.

To minimise the risk of selecting a biocontrol agent that will damage native flora, ornamental plants or crops, it’s tested carefully against a list of species of varying degrees of relatedness to the target weed.

Authorities will approve the release of a biocontrol agent only if scientists can show it’s highly specific to the weed. Assembling a list of species to test therefore requires us to understand the evolutionary relationships of the target weed to other plant species.

If such relationships are poorly understood, we might fail to test groups of species that are closely related to the target.

Missing data

Our target weed Cape ivy is a climbing daisy that has become invasive in temperate forests and coastal woodlands throughout south-eastern Australia. One of us, Ben Gooden, is researching the potential use of Digitivalva delaireae — a stem-boring moth — for its biocontrol.

We tried to design a test list, but could not find up-to-date information on Cape ivy’s relatives. We already knew it is related to the large groundsel genus Senecio, but we didn’t know how closely. And no genetic data existed for many Australian native species of Senecio.

So, we set out to solve this problem together.

First, we assembled already-published DNA sequences for as many Senecio species and relatives as we could find, and then generated sequences for an additional 32 native Australian species.

We then united all these genetic data into a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis. “Phylogenetics” infers the evolutionary relatedness of organisms to each other.

Hidden in the evolutionary tree

The resulting “evolutionary tree” showed many of the native Senecio species where we expected them to be. More importantly, however, it showed us that Cape ivy is actually quite distantly related to Senecio.

To our surprise, the analysis also placed several Australian species traditionally belonging to the Senecio genus far outside of it, indicating they didn’t belong to Senecio at all and needed to be renamed.

Simplified phylogenetic tree of the daisy tribe Senecioneae showing the evolutionary distance between Senecio, Cape ivy, and the new genus. Unlabelled branches indicate other lineages of the same tribe. Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, Author provided

The most interesting group of not-actually-Senecio are five species with leaf rosettes and one (or rarely, a few) flowerheads carried on distinctive stalks.

They’re all restricted to alpine or subalpine areas of south-eastern Australia, and all except one are found only in Tasmania. They turned out to be so unrelated, and so distinct from any other named plant genera, that they have to be recognised as a genus in its own right.

Introducing Scapisenecio

We have now named this new genus as Scapisenecio, after the long flower stalks (scapes) characterising the plants.

Species belonging to this genus are a common sight to alpine hikers. Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, Author provided

The most widespread and common species is Scaposenecio pectinatus, commonly known as the alpine groundsel, which is a familiar sight to hikers and bushwalkers in the Australian mainland alps and the central highlands of Tasmania.

Apart from the excitement of finding a previously undescribed, distinctive genus, these results were also directly relevant to the original purpose of our work: informing a plant list to test possible biocontrol agents.

The traditional misclassification of these species would have misled us about their true relationships. Our new genetic data now allow us to test biocontrol agents on an appropriate sample of species, to minimise risks to our native flora.

It is not often we find that a new, unexpected lineage of plants has existed all along, right in front of us.

Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, Research Scientist, CSIRO and Ben Gooden, Plant ecologist, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

New genus of daisies found by accident published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

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ezatluba · 5 years ago

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The mystery of Madagascar's forest cats

By Ashley Strickland

March 24, 2020

A forest cat is seen on a camera trap in Madagascar's Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve.

Madagascar is home to many unique species, including a variety of lemurs. But there's one species living in the island's forests that scientists hadn't quite been able to figure out until now: cats.

University of Colorado at Boulder anthropology professor Michelle Sauther has been studying primates and lemurs on the island nation in the Indian Ocean for 30 years. And during that time, she's seen a lot of cats in the forests.But cats aren't native to Madagascar, which is one of the world's largest islands."When I first started working in Madagascar, I noticed that these cats all seemed to look the same," Sauther said. "They were big, and they were always the same color."

They're known as the "forest cats" of Madagascar, sharing straight tails and a "mackerel" tabby coloring that blends well with the forest. They also look different than the village cats that people keep as pets on the island.Local populations use various names in their languages to call them "ampaha," which translates to "cat run wild," or "kary" or "saka kary," both of which also suggest "wild cat."Over the years, scientists have speculated that the animals are truly domestic cats who have become wild or feral, or that they're an introduced wildcat or domestic-wildcat hybrid, according to a new study. The free-ranging forest cats have been found across the island in Ankarafantsika National Park; Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve; Makira Natural Park; and the Masoala peninsula.

Sauther and her colleagues wanted to study these cats to understand where they came from and how long they've been on the island. They set up cage traps with cameras and baited with live mice at the sites where the cats are known to live in the forests of western and southwestern Madagascar.

But don't worry -- the mice were safely ensconced in their own comfy little cages with bedding and food. Altogether, the researchers captured three forest cats from the Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve and 27 forest cats from Ankarafantsika National Park. The results of their study published last week in the journal Conservation Genetics.

Blood, fecal and hair samples were taken, along with dental impressions and photographs of the cats after they were sedated. After the samples were collected, the cats were released back into the wild. The samples allowed the team to run a DNA analysis, which was then compared to 1,900 domestic and wild cat species from around the world. The answer to Madagascar's mysterious cat species was waiting in the genetics. The researchers discovered that the forest cats are descendents of domestic cats from the Arabian Sea region, including the islands of Lamu and Pate in Kenya, as well as Dubai, Kuwait and Oman in the Persian Gulf. There are also additional influences from India and Pakistan, according to the study.

They consulted historical information and discovered that the cats probably arrived on the island on trade ships along early Arab trade routes. Ships at Arabian Sea ports crossed marine trade routes beginning thousands of years ago, from the late second millennium BC through 1862, when the Age of Sail was ending, according to the study. The Cinnamon trade route across Asia and Europe, including stops at Madagascar, was made favorable by cold monsoon winds from October to March. There are also known Arab influences across the island, evident in languages, manuscripts including Arabic characters and an archaeological site containing a large mosque from the 12th century.

"They would come down along the East Coast of Africa," Sauther said. "They would stop at the islands of Lamu and Pate, and then it's just barely a jump to go over to Madagascar. [The cats] were probably part of the maritime ships that came to Madagascar along these Arab routes."The cats took well to island life, and their descendants live in its forests today. Understanding more about the forest cats will also enable researchers to determine if they're having a negative effect on wildlife. Cats can be regarded as an invasive species that can destroy native populations -- something researchers have witnessed in New Zealand, Hawaii and the West Indies.On Madagascar, villagers don't like the cats because they eat their chickens. And Sauther and her colleagues witnessed the forest cats stalking lemurs. Lemurs are unique to Madagascar, and they're considered to be one of the most endangered animals in the world.

Michelle Sauther poses next to a ring-tailed lemur. "The real worry is: What are these cats doing?" Sauther said. "Are they posing a threat to animals in Madagascar? Maybe they're just part of the local ecology. That's not to say they're not a threat, but we need to understand their biology and their history to understand how we proceed in terms of conservation policy."

More observations and studies about forest cats will help the researchers determine if they pose a threat. But for now, the mystery of where the forest cats came from has been answered."Cats have essentially gone with us everywhere we've gone," Sauther said. "We can see that journey of humans and their pets going back pretty deep in time. We now know that these mysterious cats are domestic cats with a really interesting backstory."

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laliberty · 8 years ago

Link

Imagine for a moment that, quite out of nowhere, police showed up and accused of you raping someone last Tuesday evening. They even claim to have DNA evidence of your crimes against this person, whom you've never met. How might you go about showcasing your innocence?

Naturally, the first step would be to prove you weren't at the alleged crime scene. If others can vouch for your whereabouts on Tuesday evening, you would give them as alibis. You might offer up receipts from bars visited or taxis taken that night, turn over GPS data from your vehicle, or show evidence of cell phone use—texts, calls, photographs—from this time. Detectives could easily check your word against taxi, ridesharing-service, phone, or bank data, and they might ask around to wherever you drank, dined, waited in line, picked up your kids, or whatever to see if anyone remembers seeing you. Maybe they check surveillance video from your subway stop or a 7-11 you stopped in, or get your apartment building's security footage. Maybe they find a neighbor who saw you pull into your garage, go out back to star gaze, take out your recycling...

The point is that unless you live all alone in the forest, there's a good chance you could establish where you were last Tuesday night, and conjure up enough evidence of it to drive reasonable doubt.

That is, if you're innocent. If you're guilty, all of the above works in the reverse (regardless of whether DNA evidence exists). Everyone who saw you, everywhere you traveled, and everything you paid for could place you at or near the crime scene. And for sexual assault cases, where it often comes down to the word of the accuser against that of the accused, these sorts of details could provide the crucial context needed to get a conviction—especially in cases where an assailant admits to being with the victim but claims the sex was consensual. Catching the accused in a lie about other parts of the evening, finding someone who saw them acting or looking suspicious, checking footage from places visited before or after, etc., might lead to tidbits that could help establish guilt.

Of course, this only holds if the victim comes forward soon after the attack. The key with all these potential ledes is temporal proximity: People's memories from a few days ago are still relatively fresh, security footage is still available, you (the wrongly accused in this scenario) still might still have a relevant bodega or McDonald's receipt lying around. A dorm mate or neighbor may remember seeing the assailant.

But imagine instead that the victim waits three months to file a police report. Some of the above—the nosy neighbor, say, or the pocketed receipts—will likely have been lost (who remembers minute details of some random Tuesday night three months ago?). Give it a bit longer, and more potential clues will have disappeared. Now give it six years, or 16, or 20. By that point it's not just the corroborating or exculpating GPS data, bar comrades, and bank records that are lost. Key witnesses may have died or moved off to unknown places. The bar where staff could alibi you no longer exists. All of this makes it much less likely that a victim will see (long-awaited) justice, that a rapist will be held accountable, and that a person wrongly ensnared will be able to prove their innocence. It's a lose situation all around.

Then there's the question of DNA. Any chance police had of finding useful DNA evidence at the assault location is obviously long gone, but perhaps the victim saw a doctor after the assault and had a medical forensic exam (also known, somewhat unfortunately, as a "rape kit"). This evidence, which would include samples from any semen found plus DNA evidence found anywhere on the victim's body, was sent from the hospital to a state crime lab, where it has been stored in vacuum-sealed bag inside a cardboard box inside a storage freezer for several decades. While DNA evidence does degrade with time, it should still be good for a few centuries—if stored perfectly. Thus far, however, law-enforcement forensics units have been notoriously bad at collecting, storing, and analyzing forensic evidence without making mistakes, and the longer these labs are holding on to a rape kit, the more chance for errors human or environmental. Forensic evidence storage areas in a lot of places are hardly high-tech operations, and policies for handling and keeping such evidence often ad-hoc.

Plus, as Matther Shaer put it in an Atlantic feature last year, "science is only as reliable as the manner in which we use it." And research has shown that the way we interpret DNA is highly subjective. In one 2010 study, researchers obtained documents from a 2002 Georgia rape trial in which two forensic scientists said the defendant could not be excluded as a DNA match for the mixture of sperm found inside the victim (the defendant was found guilty). In the study, the same DNA sample was shown to 17 experienced lab technicians, without context, who were then asked whether the mixture included DNA from the defendant. Twelve concluded that it definitely did not, one concluded that it definitely did, and four said it was inconclusive. "In other words," Shaer writes, "had any one of those 16 scientists been responsible for the original DNA analysis, the rape trial could have played out in a radically different way."

A similar DNA sample, processed long after it was collected and long past the point when corroborating evidence in the case is available, could be a powerful weapon of injustice indeed.

In the past, this hasn't been a big problem. But a host of factors—advances in forensic testing, a culture that's more supportive of rape victims coming forward, states storing rape-kit evidence longer, and a loosening of state statutes of limitations on rape charges—mean we could wind up with a lot more cases where sex crimes that rely on DNA evidence are being prosecuted years or decades after they occur. And if this happens, the results could be bad for assault victims, bad for innocent people, and bad for the concepts of due process and criminal justice as a whole. ...

#injustice system #politics #libertarian

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star-trekkin-across-theuniverse · 8 years ago

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Vital Signs, pt28

Word Count: 4360 Tags: @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @outside-the-government, @jimfromsales, @donnaintx, @enterprisewriting @starmission @supermoonpanda @rayleyanns @sistasarah-sallysaidso @flirtswithdanger @anyakinamidala Author’s Note: I’ve combined 2 really short chapters into one larger one.

“What is this?” Steve picked the tabloid off the coffee table after noticing his shield on the cover. I smiled and patted a spot beside me.

“About a third of the way in. You’ll laugh.” I leaned against his shoulder when he sat. He wrapped his arm around me and flipped through the tabloid. He stopped on the page with his photo and read in silence. I stole a glance at him. His jaw was set, and he looked highly irritated. He sighed heavily and closed the paper.

“Is this really a thing now?” He asked. I looked up at him, puzzled.

“Is what?” I asked.

“People actually care who my girlfriend is?”

“Why Captain, you’re famous. You’re a hero who, along with some other amazing people, prevented the complete destruction of New York city. That’s big stuff,” I explained with a smile.

“That’s fine, I know that people feel gratitude, but why would they want to know about my private life?” He was totally lost.

“The same reason people wanted to know about Bing Crosby or Jimmy Stewart in the 40s. They feel a kinship with you. I think it comes with the fame,” I shrugged.

“Why me? This is more up Tony’s alley.”

“Have you looked in a mirror and really taken inventory since you had the serum, Steve? You are astonishingly handsome, honey. I mean, Tony is a good-looking guy, but you are tall, and blonde, and have these incredible shoulders. You’re what the term ‘All-American’ was coined to describe,” I admitted. Steve still looked uncomfortable.

“Are you okay with this? If anyone finds out who you really are?” He queried. I shrugged.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we have to. Right now everyone thinks I’m some unknown actress. I can live with that.”

I was beginning to feel like I’d seen the inside of more doctor’s offices in the past week than I had before I’d been hurt. I was sitting in a cold exam room in the Hub, waiting for someone to come discuss my DNA results with me. I was grateful that I wasn’t being examined. The office was really cold. I was holding out hope that nothing had come from my tests, and there’d been some weird contamination of the sample. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case, based on the ridiculously fast recovery I was having, but I was still hopeful things would turn out for the better.

When the doctor came in, he was accompanied by Director Fury. My heart sank. It was still bad news. The doctor sat, but Director Fury stood near the window, staring out into the interior compound, watching agent trainees running an obstacle course.

“Dr. Richmond, we have your results. We’ve gone over them a few times to make sure they were correct because they were so odd,” The doctor offered. I think his name was Murphy. I knew he was a geneticist, at any rate. I nodded for him to continue, and started picking at my cuticles.

“You have 4 alien nucleotides in your system. They have replaced some of the human nucleotides at random points on the DNA strands. How familiar are you with advanced genetic analysis, Dr. Richmond?”

“I just finished med school, Doc. I’m not a specialist,” I admitted. He nodded and continued.

“Without going into too much detail, there’s a variety of corruptions happening at various places along both strands of DNA. The alien DNA hasn’t overwritten all of the human DNA, so you aren’t going to magically mutate into an alien life form, but you certainly are a blend. A mutant, as it were.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic. What does that really mean, though?” I asked.

“Well, we aren’t sure. You’re obviously healing at an accelerated rate. Your baseline temperature has dropped by two degrees Fahrenheit, which has you just above hypothermic, but there’s no damage occurring to you on a cellular level. Given the nature of what creature corrupted your DNA, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some further decrease in your temperature. And increased strength, healing and endurance. Your assessment of the prisoner who did this was quite thorough, by the way,” he complimented me. I felt sick.

“Uh, thanks. Am I finished mutating? Can you tell?”

“We’re going to want to follow you with regular DNA testing over the next six to twelve months, just to be sure, but from the samples you gave us, it looked like the synthesis of the nucleotides into your system was mostly complete.”

“Do you think this will affect my ability to work as a doctor?” I felt a tightness in my chest and tried not to panic. He shook his head.

“If anything, it would appeal that your abilities all around are going to be increasing. You may find it easier to specialize, if your processing skill increases along with your other abilities. If you have any other questions, I’ve forwarded you my initial report on the internal server. You can contact me any time. I believe Director Fury would like to discuss this matter privately with you. It was a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Richmond.” He shook my hand and excused himself. Director Fury turned away from the window.

“How are you feeling about this?” He asked.

“If I knew where Loki was, I’m pretty sure I’d be testing the strength of my fist on his face,” I admitted.

“We’re trying to figure out a way to contact Thor, but in all honesty, I don’t think he’ll have any insight. Nor do I think he’d hand over Loki to mentor you.” Fury’s voice was dripping sarcasm. I smiled in resignation.

“You’re probably right.” My sigh was from the bottom of my lungs. I was so frustrated.

“We want to do some physical testing on you. Just to find out what you are capable of,” he stated.

“I’m not comfortable with that, Director. I made my choice when I finished med school. I don’t want to be thrown into the agent pool,” I declined. He nodded.

“That’s fair. For now. Understand that wasn’t a request. You will undergo trials. But I am willing to give you some time to get used to the idea. Testing doesn’t mean you’ll be pulled from medical. It just means you are a more versatile member of our team.”

“Understood.” I could feel my cheeks turning red. I didn’t like the idea of being used, no matter how good the pension and benefits were.

“On your return to work, you will be assigned to the Avengers Initiative until further notice. You are familiar with the medical history of everyone on the team, and they’ve all expressed their preference quite soundly,” he continued. I stood, to protest.

“Sir, the MRI project-“

“Stark is part of the Initiative. You can continue your work with him when you return to duty,” he cut me off. “Dr. Richmond, don’t think for one moment that we don’t have your best interests at heart. SHIELD has assessed the risk involved with your genetic corruption and feel that you are best suited to an environment where other unique individuals can be around to aid you in your transition.”

“SHIELD seems better served by that decision, sir,” I muttered. He raised the good eyebrow.

“SHIELD needs to protect its assets, Richmond. You are now an unknown variable in a complex experiment. You need to be in a controlled environment with people who can deal with you should things begin to go badly. It is for your protection, and the protection of the unaltered humans on the SHIELD payroll. Dr. Banner in particular should be of great help to you.” Fury sounded like he was being completely honest. I was used to a lot of what came from on high at SHIELD being couched in ambiguous wording. This felt true at least.

“Yes, sir.” I was resigned to doing as I was ordered. No matter how much it made me feel like a naughty child.

“Dr. Ward at Midtown has been in touch. He wants one final appointment with you before he releases you from his care. He says you should be cleared to return to work after that, provided we give you ongoing weekly medical follow-ups for six months. Had he spoken to you about that?” He asked.

“I pushed for it, Sir. I’m physically better than I was, and my eyesight is almost completely normal now. I’m glad he agreed with my assessment,” I admitted. Fury nodded.

“As far as I am concerned, as soon as you have the letter in hand, you can report to Avengers Tower. I understand Captain Rogers isn’t interested in living on site right now, but perhaps this assignment will change his mind,” Fury commented.

“Sir, if you are trying to force his hand by putting me on the project, I don’t think you will be successful,” I argued. Fury tipped his head and raised a shoulder in a ‘who knows’ gesture. I collected my things and looked back up at him, waiting to be dismissed.

“Have a good afternoon, Richmond.” He waved me away and went back to watching the trainees in the compound.

I had probes stuck to me everywhere. There was an oxygen mask on my face, and a blood pressure cuff on my arm. And they asked me to just ‘act like it’s your normal morning run’. Except it was on a treadmill, in a lab, with no windows. And I was facing a wall. I jogged along on the treadmill, reciting lab values to stay focused. There were a couple of lab rats hovering around the computer that was monitoring me. They were whispering quietly enough that I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. One of them finally turned to me. He looked so young I had a hard time believing he was old enough to be working as anything other than a mailroom clerk, but apparently he was a biochemistry expert with a background in human kinetics. I think his name was Simon.

“Alexandra, go ahead and take it up to as fast as you can run, and sustain that for as long as you can, please,” he requested. I increased the treadmill speed until I felt I was going my fastest and got used to the new pace. While I stared at the blank white wall, I imagined throttling Loki. Natasha said my hand-to-hand was drastically improved with the increased agility, strength and speed my body had gained from the genetic corruption Loki had caused. When I had my annual target recertification, I was still fairly uncomfortable wielding a handgun, but I my scored were better than ever, and my aim had always been excellent to begin with. Director Fury had seen those results and immediately ordered the full physical assessment that was given to “unique assets” upon their discovery. So much for giving me time to adjust. I’d been told this was to establish a baseline to track for further improvements, but I didn’t believe it for a minute.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t notice the passage of time, until the lab rat came and pressed stop on the treadmill. It slowed and I stepped off. I took a towel and wiped the sweat from my face. He was shaking his head.

“Are we done?” I asked. He looked at the computer print out and back to me.

“This is unreal. You were at a full sprint for 16 minutes and 43 seconds. And your heart rate is barely elevated.” He pointed to a spot on the printout, “Right here? You sped up. After 11 minutes. Running as fast as you can. You were running as fast as you can, right?”

“I think so.”

“Can I ask a really unprofessional question?” He asked. I shrugged. I couldn’t see why not. I already felt freakish enough.

“Sure.”

“Do you have any superpowers?” It came out in a rush. I laughed.

“Like what?” It was the best question anyone had asked me since the whole fiasco had started.

“I don’t know. Can you rematerialize and rematerialize somewhere else? Or start fires with your mind? Fly? Emit a scream at such a high frequency that it liquefies the brains of your enemies?”

“Dude, have you ever read the Old Norse Eddas? Those gods and demi-gods don’t really have superpowers. They have super strength, and endurance, and intelligence, and sometimes magic weapons, but they don’t have magic powers.” I had being spending all my free time reading whatever I could get my hands on about the Viking gods.

“I have, actually. And Loki is a sorcerer, with powerful magic. Haven’t you seen that footage from Germany? He made copies of himself. And there really isn’t a lot of info about these Frost Giants. Maybe if you think about it, you could shoot icicles or something.” He was so eager and interested, I felt bad disappointing him.

“Nothing so exciting, Simon, sorry. I’ll tell you what I have noticed though. Even though my baseline temperature has dropped, I am always freezing cold. You would think I wouldn’t notice the cold as much because I am colder. That I couldn’t feel cold unless it was super cold. But I notice the slightest chill in the air. I owned one sweatshirt before this. It’s starting to get worn out. Even when I’m running, I am cold.” Almost as if on demand, a wave of goose bumps raced across my shoulders. He tapped at his tablet for a moment and looked back up.

“Will you try something for me?” He asked. I suspected this line of questioning was completely off the books, so I agreed. He poured a cup of coffee and set it down on the table beside us.

“Okay, it’s coffee,” I observed.

“Pick it up, and focus on the coffee in the cup. Think about it getting cold. Put the same amount of energy you put into your run into thinking about that coffee freezing into a big ice cube,” he said. I sat down at the table, and put my hands around the coffee cup. I stared into the cup and focused my thoughts on freezing the coffee. I felt like an idiot, and pretty soon my mind wandered to work stuff, and then over to Steve, and the weirdness of life as the chief medical officer of the Avengers Initiative. Simon snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. I snapped out of my thoughts and blushed.

“Sorry, my mind wandered.”

“I caught that when you started chuckling. Try again,” he demanded. I adjusted my position in the chair and focused on the coffee cup again. I was staring so intently at it, that I got that weird tunnel vision and stopped actually seeing the coffee cup, but was still intently focused on making the coffee freeze. Simon stuck his fingers in front of my face and snapped again.

“That is totally rude,” I cocked an eyebrow in distaste.

“Well, you weren’t answering me either time. It was snap my fingers or slap your face.”

“Duly noted. Look, Simon, I’m sorry. This isn’t working.”

“Look at the cup, Alexandra,” he said. I let go of the cup and pushed it away.

“My mind is just not on this today.”

“Look at the cup, Alexandra.” He pushed the cup back toward me. I pushed it back, feeling more frustrated with every passing moment.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you with the whole superpowers thing.” I pushed my chair away from the table, readying myself to leave.

“Look at the goddamn cup, Alexandra!” He pushed it back toward me. I held my hands up in surrender and grabbed the coffee cup. The coffee was frozen solid.

“The fuck?” I breathed. I held the cup upside down. It was really frozen. Simon jumped up and got another cup of coffee.

“Do it again,” he demanded. I took the cup and focused on it. I kept my eyes alert and on the coffee swirling around in it, until suddenly little veins of frost started spreading across the surface of the liquid. I gasped and dropped the cup. It smashed on the floor and a slurry of slushy coffee spread out around the shards of porcelain.

“Holy fuck. I have superpowers. I gotta go.” I stood up and stared down at the mess on the floor, and back up at Simon. He was pale and his eyes were the size of saucers.

“Sure, we can finish this up another time. I’ll send you a reschedule notification,” he nodded, not looking up from the slush. I turned and booked it out of there before he changed his mind. It felt like it took me forever to get back to Avengers Tower.

I stepped of the elevator and directly into Stark. He caught my arms as I bounced back toward the elevator and started laughing.

“How’d the testing go? Did they make you go ice-skating? Maybe play hockey? Eat ice cream in a blizzard? Something else to prove you’re turning into an ice monster?” He teased. I stepped out of his grip and gave him a dirty look.

“Frost Giant. And not funny,” I snapped. I needed to find Steve. Or Dr. Banner. Preferably Steve. Tony put his hand on my arm to stop me from walking away.

“They did something to you, Lexy. What did they do to you? Come on, tell Uncle Tony,” he winked. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I felt him let go of my arm. When I opened my eyes, he was looking at his hand. He looked back at me, a million questions written on his face.

“Have you seen Steve?” I asked. He shook his head.

“What did you just do, Lexy?” His words were slow and deliberate, which wasn’t something that was common to Tony Stark. I turned away to go look for Steve, heading toward the lounge. He was probably watching TV, if he had nothing else going on.

“I hate when you call me Lexy,” I called over my shoulder as I walked away without answering him. Steve, fortunately, was in the lounge. He turned off the TV when he saw me come in, and came to give me a quick kiss.

“Hungry? I’ve been trying out a new pastry recipe, and have a rhubarb pie that’s ready to eat,” he offered. I nodded, and let him lead me toward the kitchen. Despite the amazing smell coming from the pie, no one had followed their nose in yet, and we were blessedly alone. I poured myself a cup of coffee. Steve pulled plates out of the cupboard and was rustling around in the cutlery drawer for forks. He was whistling as though it were any other day.

“Steve, I have to show you something.” I turned him to face me. He immediately became serious, and put on his Captain America face.

“What happened at your assessment?” His eyes were concerned. I led him over to the table and made him sit. I sat down across from him and put the coffee cup between us.

“Watch,” I said, and put my hands around the cup. I focused my thoughts, just as I had in the assessment, and sure enough, moments later, tracks of ice began to spread across the top of the coffee. Steve was awestruck.

“Well, that’s going to interest Fury.” It was the understatement of the year. I pushed the cup toward him, and watched as he touched the surface of the ice, tipped the cup upside down, all the same things I’d done.

“I need to know what else is going to come from this,” I said. Steve nodded.

“Fury says there’s no way to reach Thor, but I’ve been reading that book of Norse mythology you left beside the bed. Most of it is just that, mythology. But based on what I know about Thor, and what I learned about Loki while he was here, it doesn’t take much to read between the lines and get the gist of how life works in Asgard,” he offered.

“You know how to call Thor?” I was dumbfounded.

“Well,” he hesitated, “I don’t know if it will work. But that Heimdall guy, he’s the guardian of Asgard, and can see all the nine realms, according to the book. So why can’t we try getting his attention? I just don’t really know –“

“I do.” I stood up and headed out onto the balcony and climbed the stairs to the roof. It was surprisingly windy, and I felt unsteady on my feet. I stayed the middle of the roof and took a deep breath. I looked up at the sky.

“Heimdall!” I yelled. My voice was swallowed by the sound of the breeze. I tried again.

“Heimdall! Heimdall! If you truly watch all the worlds, then you know what has happened in mine. I need to talk to Loki. Or Thor. But preferably Loki,” I yelled as loudly as I could. “I need to know what is happening to me!”

It wasn’t that I expected something to instantly happen, but I really wanted something to instantly happen. Nothing happened. I yelled my message a couple more times before succumbing to the chill of the wind and heading back inside. Steve handed me a plate with pie on it when I arrived in the kitchen. I ate without speaking, disappointed that nothing had magically and instantly happened. Steve sat beside me, silently eating his slice of pie. I collected our dishes and washed up, trying unsuccessfully to avoid marking time since I’d yelled myself nearly hoarse on the rooftop. I kissed Steve goodbye and headed over to the lab to work with Tony on the MRI project.

I couldn’t sleep. I had been alternating between staring at the ceiling and the back of Steve’s head for what felt like hours, but my watch assured me was actually only 45 minutes. I decided to go back to the tower and work.

An hour later, I was sitting staring at the image in front of me, trying to figure out how to modify the 3D imagery. We’d resolved the improved resolution issue weeks ago, but now it was a matter of making the holographic images tear away more cleanly. I was on a fool’s errand. I didn’t have the expertise to figure out what I was staring at, but I felt more productive sitting and staring in the lab than I did lying in bed and staring. So it was something. I pulled up my most recent MRI and was swiping though it, admiring how well my brain had decompressed and healed over the past weeks. I pushed back the image until it was my entire body. We worked on my MRIs a lot, since the permission to use them for research was easy to acquire. We worked on all the Avengers’ MRIs a lot too, for the same reason.

“Dr. Richmond, there’s someone approaching the lab,” J.A.R.V.I.S. announced from a speaker over my head. I didn’t really pay attention, Tony frequently spent all night in the lab. Maybe I could get him to explain all the theory behind the computer code that ran the simulation again. I pulled out the reproductive organs and tossed them into another holographic window. I turned toward them and starting investigating them more thoroughly. I’d had a stunning moment of revelation when I froze the coffee that had been bothering me even since. With all the mutations that had happened within my DNA, I was likely going to be unable to have children. It bugged me because Steve was so old-fashioned that if we got actually serious, I was worried he’d be devastated if I couldn’t conceive. I got lost in that thought while I was enlarging an image of my ovaries, and completely forgot about the visitor to the lab.

“Dr. Richmond.” The accented voice came from behind me. I whirled around quickly.

“Thor!” I gasped. It had worked.

“Heimdall thinks you are very intelligent,” he offered.

“It was Steve’s idea.”

“The captain has great insight, but you were the one to put the idea to action,” he acknowledged.

“I need some answers.” I cut right to the chase.

“You’d requested Loki. I’m afraid our father would not allow him to be released. Particularly not to Midgard,” he offered.

“You know, that’s totally understandable. He gave me a frost burn,” I started.

“I recall that well, Dr. Richmond.”

“He infected me. With himself.” Thor wasn’t stupid, but I had no idea what his understanding of medicine was. He took my arm in his hands and traced a finger along the faint outline of Loki’s hand.

“That mark will stay with you forever. I cannot change that.” He was apologetic.

“That’s not the issue, Thor. When he burned me, he transferred some of his DNA into me. My body absorbed it, and has mutated.”

“You’ve absorbed part of Loki?” Thor was confused. I picked up the glass of water I’d put on the table, and handed it to Thor. I place a single finger on the rim of the glass, and froze the water. Thor looked horrified.

“How can he have done this?” Thor was, for lack of a better description, floored. I shrugged.

“That’s why I needed to see him. I need to know what is going to happen. I need to know if this is going to kill me, or make me sterile, or make me taller, or whatever,” I explained. Thor nodded.

“I will seek out answers for you, Dr. Richmond.” He was so formal.

“You can call me Lex, Thor. Everyone does.”

“Of course, Lady Alexandra,” he smiled.

“Or you can keep calling me Dr. Richmond,” I decided. He smiled and excused himself. Part of me wanted to follow him, if for no other reason than to see the Bifrost open, and see if it really was a rainbow. I stayed behind, and was suddenly so exhausted that I went up to the lounge and crashed on the couch.

#avengers fanfic #Steve Rogers x OFC

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mjacksonbio-blog · 8 years ago

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MRT: The Start of Something New (and Dangerous?)

The clinical application of mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) is still in its early stages, given that it remains illegal in the United States and Canada, and only recently was legalized in the United Kingdom. However, last year a team of US doctors lead by Zhang working in Mexico performed a type of MRT, spindle nuclear transfer (SNT), for a mother who had lost six children to Leigh syndrome, a neurological disorder caused by a mutation in her mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). This resulted in the first live birth of a baby boy following SNT. Here, I’ll describe SNT and how it was used in this particular case, followed by a brief discussion of the ethical issues that are preventing legalization of MRT in Canada.

In Timing is Everything for MRT, I described one of the three types of MRT known as pronuclear transplantation (PNT). While PNT involves fertilizing both the mother’s egg and donor egg before swapping pronuclei (Figure 1), SNT is performed prior to fertilization, so the donor’s nucleus is replaced with the mother’s nucleus. Zhang performed SNT rather than PNT because the couple he was treating was against destroying embryos for religious reasons. With SNT, an egg is discarded in the process rather than an embryo.

Figure 1. Outline of pronuclear transplantation (PNT), a form of MRT used to avoid mtDNA mutations from being passed on to offspring by replacing donor egg pronuclei with the mother’s pronuclei. The eggs are fertilized prior to swapping of the pronuclei, which means an embryo is discarded in the process.

As eggs develop and prepare for fertilization, they undergo one cycle of meiosis and then are halted in the middle of the second round, at metaphase II to be precise, until fertilization. At this stage, chromosomes are lined up in the middle of the cell preparing to be pulled to opposite poles by the spindle apparatus in order to divide the genetic material into two new cells. During SNT, the metaphase II spindle-chromosome complex is removed from the mother’s egg, which contains mitochondria with mutated mtDNA, and transplanted into a donor egg with healthy mtDNA that has also had its spindle-chromosome complex removed. Next, the egg is fertilized and implanted in the mother’s uterus via in vitro fertilization (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Outline of spindle nuclear transfer (SNT), another form of MRT that involves replacing the donor’s spindle-chromosome complex with the mother’s. Afterwards, the egg is fertilized and the embryo is implanted in the mother. This means that an egg is discarded in the process rather than an embryo. Note: the chromosomes are not concentrated in the nucleus during this technique, but were shown this way for the sake of simplicity in showing the movement of genetic material.

The patient treated by Zhang and colleagues was a 36-year-old woman who had four previous pregnancy losses and two deceased children, all from complications of Leigh syndrome. While the mother was healthy, she carried a mutation in a gene known to cause Leigh syndrome, present in 24.5% of her mtDNA. Yet, over 95% of her children’s mtDNA had this mutation. This made her a prime candidate for MRT.

Zhang performed SNT for five eggs, four of which developed into blastocysts following fertilization. The blastocysts were screened using preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which showed that one had the normal number of chromosomes (46) while three did not. This normal blastocyst was transferred to the mother’s uterus, and she had an uneventful pregnancy. She gave birth to full-term, healthy boy at 37 weeks, and analysis of various tissue and body fluid samples showed that only 1.6% of mtDNA was carryover from the mother. Thus, SNT was used successfully to replace the mother’s mutated mtDNA with the donor’s healthy mtDNA. There have been no updates on the baby since he was three months old, but monitoring his progress over the coming years will help us understand whether MRT impacts development after birth.

By now, you may be wondering why MRT remains illegal in Canada and the US despite the clear benefits. Diseases caused by mutations in mtDNA can be not only severe and fatal, but are also incurable. Additionally, there is no doubt this particular couple’s attempt to have children was gruelling and heart-breaking. Nonetheless, we cannot talk about assisted reproductive technology (ART) without considering the ethical implications of these ground-breaking advances.

One primary objection to human genetic modification when it comes to ART is that it is interfering with nature, or “playing God”. Some believe that there should be limit to the control humans are able to have over their biological makeup. Others suggest that the consequences of making genetic changes are still poorly understood, and therefore the natural, unaltered state should be protected. In contrast to this position, others would argue that it is difficult to claim that the natural state is superior when it is the source of the significant burden of human genetic disease. Furthermore, humans have a long history of striving to improve on their natural state, including pursuing treatments for disease and boosting immunity through immunizations. This further emphasizes the importance drawing a line to tell us how much control is too much.

There are also concerns that ART can be a form of eugenics, which is the use of genetics and heredity to improve the human race. There are two forms of eugenics: positive and negative. Negative eugenics pertains to efforts to prevent transmission of certain hereditary traits while positive eugenics relates to using hereditary knowledge to improve gene pools and promote fitness. Specifically, some have raised the concern that ART could have a significant impact on people living with disabilities. If ART becomes more accessible and even expected by society, women may feel pressure to use the techniques for their pregnancies to ensure they do not pass on any genetic diseases, for example Down syndrome. Furthermore, a society that favours using technology to minimize the chance of babies being born with disabilities could translate to a society that is intolerant of people already living with disabilities. In reply to this argument, some have pointed out that individual women are likely seeking ART to avoid imposing suffering on their future child, not to contribute to the marginalization of people with disabilities. Nevertheless, prenatal genetic testing may be harmful towards people with disabilities, regardless of the intentions of individual women.

At the end of the day, it is clear that there are still too many unknowns pertaining to ART and MRT for them to be fully implemented in our health care systems. Following the healthy baby achieved by Zhang throughout its life will help us to understand the long-term effects of genetic modifications in germ cells. Canada and the US are wise to wait until more studies about the consequences of genetic modifications are conducted before deciding how they will be regulated. The benefits of these technologies make them worth exploring further, but as a society we must proceed with caution to avoid causing more harm than we’re preventing.

For more reading about Zhang’s accomplishment and MRT in general: 'Three-parent baby' claim raises hopes- and ethical concerns (Nature, September 2016) Exclusive: World's first baby born with new "3 parent" technique (New Scientist, September 2016) Reproductive medicine: The power of three (Nature, May 2014) Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques: Ethical and Social Policy Considerations (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016)

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