seekevolution | (no subject)

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If there was one thing that Mohinder Suresh was good at, it was getting into trouble. He did it to himself, falling into patterns that placed him in dangerous situations and in league with dangerous people. Yes, he always meant well, chasing after research that would save mankind from and for itself, but the personal toll to himself and those around him tended to be extremely high. This time was no different. A distraction and a slip of a normally very careful hand left a jab through a double layered glove that had him throwing down his tools and heading to the sink to see if he had gotten through the skin. He had only torn off the latex when the first wave of dizziness hit.

Mohinder woke up over an hour later, sweat soaked and shivering on the floor of the lab. Nothing felt broken and for a little while, he forgot what had happened. He sat up slowly, pushed the hair back from his eyes, and glanced down at one blue hand and one skin-coloured palm. Memory rushed back to him and he leaped to his feet to call the company whose drug it was that he was testing and perfecting. There was just a dial tone and a friendly voice telling him that the number had been disconnected. He glanced up and the little red light that usually signaled he was being taped (standard procedure in this lab) was off. The door was unlocked and he shivered again, feeling something move through him.

He should be dead. The catalyst in the drug was enough to kill a man twice his size, the purest form of the component that would make the medicine work against the virus affecting evolved humans. No, he shouldn’t just be dead. He should have exploded all over these walls…and he did not.

The cell phone in his pocket didn’t have reception until he stepped, shaking, into the loading dock. He called the only person he knew might be able to help him. He hadn’t seen Bruce Banner in years. He’d become a consultant for the Avengers in the time since doing humanitarian work in Calcutta, or so the internet said, a frequent guest of Tony Stark of all people. Mohinder didn’t actually have Bruce’s number so he just called the Stark Relief Foundation, where Banner was supposed to be working. It took an hour for him to track down his old acquaintance from his time volunteering with Banner in the slums of Indian. “Doctor Banner? I don’t know if you remember me… My name is Mohinder Suresh. I interned briefly with you overseas?”

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Mohinder moved too, strangely and jiltedly, though that was intentional. The drug should have fully been metabolized by his system by now, he should be perfectly fine and back to normal, barring unknown side effects, but he didn't want to trigger any explosion effect. He stopped just short of the curving glass so he didn't smash his forehead into the curve and crossed his arms protectively around himself.

"I was transferring a catalyst for gene therapy into coagulant solutions. The catalyst itself is a powered and highly concentrated form of a gas catalyst developed prior to my start with the company. It... It causes rapid cellular growth, denies the release of water from dying cells and... And it causes the subject to liquefy internally before gas wastes explode internal contents through the skin."

He pressed his forehead, willfully, against the curving glass. His eyes were hidden under a tangle of curls, but the faint glow of them lingered between the strands.

"I don't feel well, Doctor Banner. I'm not sure what this is doing to me, but it doesn't seem to care to kill me."

Edited 2016-07-13 10:02 (UTC)

That explained the heightened blood pressure, the vastly abnormally low oxygen levels, and the seizures. Mohinder was right; if this was the purpose of this catalyst, then his old friend should have been dead, liquefied on the walls of this containment unit. Bruce took a slow breath, watching Mohinder, trying to figure out where to begin. This was... this was even more than he might have expected.

"I won't ask why you were developing that before," though his tone briefly hinted he didn't believe it was for the betterment of man-kind if it was that destructive, "however, for right now... you're right. This hasn't killed you, for whatever reason, so we're going to start small. We need to figure out if you are still viable for this to occur or if you've passed into some next level." Bruce moved over to the cage where there was a port big enough to pass food into and in turn, receive samples or... whatever else might be needed to deal with. "Over here. Blood sample, to start. We'll move slow and pray that a puncture of the skin won't start any kind of chain reaction." He knew it could, and his expression spoke volumes with a level of deep concern behind it.

The Indian stayed where he was. He tilted his head to follow Banner (because that was totally normal, sure, and pressed his fingertips to the glass before his legs took him to the opening. His fingers dragged on the glass the entire way, thumb nail scratching a path ahead of them. He swallowed and looked at Bruce, dead on, intensely. "You should be in a protective garment before we begin." He wasn't sure if his blood was toxic. He had only been jabbed with the catalyst, not the full serum, and while he was a carrier of the evolved human gene, it was not expressed and without the expressive triggers. But if Bruce did happen to have the gene, or worse, if he did not, the rapid excellerative effect of his blood could be very bad news for his old mentor. "Ten minutes won't matter. And then... I had to be a further bother, but while we wait for the results, do you think we could have lunch?"

Mohinder started to smile before he felt terror grip him and emotion welled up in his eyes. He pressed both palms to the glass, holding himself up.

"I'll tell you everything. They abandoned me. I doubt the NDA still stands."

The sound of that fingernail dragging sent a shudder straight through him, leaving Bruce with the hair along his arms standing on end. Something was happening with Mohinder that was changing on a deeper level, and if his mention of enhancing human evolution had anything to do with it... just what was Mohinder evolving into? Despite Mohinder's thoughts, it was obvious something was happening to his body that was rapidly altering it.

"I won't abandon you." That, if nothing else, Bruce Banner could promise. He knew a few things about being abandoned and he wouldn't do that in someone's hour of need. "We'll go over it, piece by piece, and figure out what's happening... and where it might go from there." He went about getting what he needed to collect the sample, and even went through the effort of putting on protective gloves to mask that he didn't need them.

"As for lunch, tell me what you want to get and I'll have it brought to the Tower. ...I haven't exactly eaten any real food in the last day, since I definitely don't count airline food as real food." It was more chatter than he would bother with when it came to most people, but even in this situation, he had been comfortable with Mohinder back then and it remained. When he had the IV set, he took a breath and readied himself for whatever might come. "Arm through the hole in the inner layer," he said as he pressed the release, using the gloves through the outer layer to access that inner layer.

"A good curry. Were you in India?" Mohinder asked, body pressed firmly to the glass to reach his arm as far as it would go through the hole. He was frightened, but hyper focused. He watched Bruce carefully press the needle into his arm and once his blood started to flow, deep magenta and not the bright red one might expect, he closed his eyes and tried to remember to breathe. There was a tremor beneath his entire body, leaving him barely standing. "I was... I was shown photographs of the researchers that discovered the catalyst. That colour... That was all over the floor and the walls and the ceiling of their lab. I thought that the photos were initially off. Bad angle, poor lighting, but that's not true. The smallest fraction of a solution of the catalyst, taken alone without the rest of the serum and the bonding agent, is one hundred percent fatal in human beings. With or without the trigger genes. I've done this a thousand times. One grain of the powder dissolved in ten miligrams of iodine and mixed with thirty gallons of potable water. Ten ccs of the catalyst solution to one part bonding agent and one part of the testable gene therapy coctail-- We were getting close, Doctpr Banner. We were getting close to leveling the playing field. Super Soldiers without the side effects. Minds to rival Tony Stark's. Unaided flight. Immortality. We were so close...."

There were tears on the glass. Mohinder sniffled a little.

"All it takes is a little extra adrenaline. This time I would have gotten it. I don't know where everyone went. I would have been contained in my lab. The building was empty."

There was a part of Bruce that was angry, hearing what Mohinder had been doing. He worked in silence as he listened, eyes focused on that dark blood. As he worked, and even as he finished and carefully closed off the tube and worked to make sure not a drop was spilled, he remained silent. Silent through putting a bit of gauze and tape over the crook of Mohinder's elbow, silent as he cleaned up. Only when he was done, his samples in a small metal box that would keep them safe, did he turn back to Mohinder with tired eyes.

"...We aren't gods, Mohinder. We aren't meant to play at them, either. There are always going to be side effects - even if it isn't physical or mental in those who are changed, it'll come as people react to them. Somehow, they will hurt others, even if their intentions are good." But his tone changed as he continued, hinting at 'enough said about that'. "I don't believe you're going to explode, given the lack of reaction to getting blood drawn, but you'll stay here over night until I can confirm that. I can, in the mean time, get you curry from a place nearby that is actually quite acceptable." A smile, but it's almost too sad in his eyes to be one.

"What's done is done, but we'll go where we can from here." And try to deal with the feelings of guilt that this was what Mohinder had ended up doing after his internship.

Mohinder's forehead rolled on the glass until his back was to Bruce. He slid down to the ground and pulled up his knees, speaking low and soft. "I read that dolphins actually use more of their cerebral capacity than humans do because of echolocation. They adapted that, but we...we don't adapt anymore. We use our limited cerebral capacity to better ourselves through invention rather than evolution. We all have the ability to be better people, Doctor Banner. We all have the ability to be immune to disease and allow people to live longer and fuller lives. What I was trying to do was flip the right switches. It's a homeopathic response to the prescription drug wars and technology."

He wasn't playing God. Mohinder was still stoutly an atheist. He was just trying to do some good. He was trying to help everyone, all at once, to achieve their full potential.

He just went about it the wrong way. He got involved with people that did not entirely share his same concerns or beliefs. That was the story of Mohinder Suresh's life.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Banner. I've seen things... I've seen amazing and horrible and wonderful things. It wasn't suppose to happen this way."

"You didn't talk about expanding life times or healing," Bruce said quietly, feeling a certain level of sickness in the pit of his stomach. "I don't know if you wanted to see people with these incredible abilities - flying, strength, whatever you think - or if you're caught up in whatever your once-employer decided they wanted. The young man I said goodbye to at the end of his internship... I wouldn't have imagined would get caught up in this, so I want to believe you wanted the best for people."

It was playing god, in the meaning of what that phrase is supposed to encompass. Bruce believes in gods no more than Mohinder despite meeting two so-called ones, but he spoke what he saw. Right now, though, he wanted to make sure something wasn't going to happen immediately to Mohinder. The social and emotional repercussions of his actions would have to be dealt with after. Why did this all feel like a sequel of his own life?

"...We adapt slowly, as people. Humans are one of the most resilient beings on the planet, even as fragile as we are, but we wouldn't be here now if we didn't evolve and adapt. It's a slow process." He sighed, feeling far older than his years and inside, restless. "Other than lunch-" which he was certain a certain AI already was ordering, "is there something I can do for you? Something to read, or watch? A tablet?"

He sagged, shaking his head, all slumping together in on himself like a half baked flan someone walked too heavily into the kitchen on. "I'd rather sit here and reflect on my stupidity," he said, properly cowed. He would sit there for twenty-five minutes until the order arrived, while Bruce checked in with Tony (who was spending some time 'getting to know himself again' since Pepper broke up with him in Vegas).

While they ate from plastic bowls with plastic spoons, a world apart with the glass between them, Mohinder started from the beginning.

"I went to work at a pharmaceutical company in England. I met a girl there. Mira. We got engaged and found work back in Mumbai working on a cancer suppressant. Too much work and no play-- She called off the wedding and I don't blame her. So I switched to teaching at the university my father also taught at. He was fixated on human evolution-- not a long and drawn out process like you'd imagine, but something happening. Right here. Right now. Chasing his theories got him killed and, dutiful son, I came to America after him to find out what happened, collect his ashes and return home."

He was already finished his meal despite non stop talking.

"I met a man with telekinesis. Another who can fly. One that can copy super hero abilities. A girl that can't die. One who can turn water to ice with a touch... It's all right if you think I'm mad. But the next phase of human existence has already been born and is thriving. Humanity has changed. And those that do not change with it will go the way of the Neanderthal."

"Have you thought maybe that is what is supposed to happen? That this next stage of evolution is what is supposed to come?" No, he wasn't surprised, not with the things he knew existed out there. He had heard stories of mutants and powers and witnessed some for himself. If this company had been chasing making these for themselves, Mohinder's father on the tail of the stories that were true, then it was a perfect storm ready to swallow the young scientist whole.

"Is it right for anyone to tamper with that?" But it was less to Mohinder and more to himself, perhaps his past-self. "I'm sorry about your father, though. He was a good man." Their meeting had been brief, back when Mohinder had started his internship, but he had heard about the man through Mohinder many times over. His fingers played with the plastic spoon, turning it over again and again, his mind filled with images of fire and thunder and flight.

"Humans create when they need adapation, but this... is a whole new level of creation."

"I suppose it's all just a moral debate now," Mohinder said softly, gazing at that empty bowl as if he might snatch it up again and lick it clean. He stood instead and walked to the centre of the cage, eyes trailing the curves of it before he slid both hands into his hair along his scalp and tugged.

Two big black clumps came out in his palms and he gasped in horror, turning to show Bruce the spoils of the itch he had felt moments before on his head.

"I didn't-- I hadn't planned on becoming a new level of creation." His lower jaw trembled. "What could be making me shed my hair...?" It was better to stay on point and on course. "I-- Are we running video and audio? We should record what's happening to me. In case..."

Damn it all. Bruce stared at those clumps before whispering a curse to himself. This was happening so much faster than he might have guessed. "Audio and video has been running since you arrived," he said quietly, moving to toss his trash away and go for the samples. His mind was racing, and as he stared at the blood, his fingers twitched hard. What could make his hair fall out this fast? In such big clumps? The only thing he knew that could do that-

He looked back hard at Mohinder, those glowing eyes, before he let out a breath. "Keep it together, Mohinder. I need to run tests." As fast as possible. He would need to find out what was in Mohinder's body and as of ten minutes ago, so he rushed it as quickly as possible. If he couldn't figure this out... Mohinder might be not even Mohinder shortly, but worse, he could be dead.

There was not much that Mohinder could really do to help other than walk Bruce through logging into his laptop and gong through the unlabeled samples he had brought. He asked for a pen that could write on the glass and in a rather remarkable feat of mirror writing capability, was able to help his old mentor with some of the molecule designs by drawing them out on the cell walls.

His eyes were a bright, unnatural gold by the time the tests were finished, and clumps of hair had fallen out aroun him as he walked. It did not look as if he was going bald, however. His scalp was dense with new follicle growth of black with a green sheened hue to it.

Mohinder's cells were undergoing a rapid regrowth. Instead of just liquifying him, they were dying off and being replaced by hardier, stronger cells. It was remarkable, really. Even Mohinder's skin seemed to be glowing ever so slightly, as if he was full of life and health, as if he radiated internally.

The magenta blood had turned completely purple and Mohinder was no longer breathing. His heart was no longer beating. He didn't need oxygen any more.

It was the machinery that warned them when Mohinder's heart stopped. Bruce was bent over a microscope, studying something that flatly should have been impossible, when there was an alarm that jerked him violently out of that and left him struggling to first know what was going on and second, figure out how to get his heart to stop racing. He stared across the room towards the single machine measuring heartrate, temperature, breathing, that was still giving that piercing alarm as the heartrate line showed flat.

He looked to Mohinder, who looked as surprised as he felt, and looked still very much alive. "...Mohinder?" Quiet, almost desperately needing confirmation that the other was still alive despite what his eyes told him. How could Mohinder still be alive... but if what he read from the blood spoke true, could his heart stop when his blood no longer needed oxygen? No. None of this made sense.

He had to take a breath to be able to speak and so Mohinder filled his lungs as he dropped his marker and wet his lips before exhaling words. "I can no longer feel my heart," he said, though the roaring warning signs of the life signs monitor had already told him that. He pressed his fingers against his neck at a pulse point. Nothing thumped reassuringly against his fingertips. He tried his wrist as well, and all he felt was skin and heat and nothing else.

He should collapse. Perhaps everything was turning to mush inside of him. There was no pain though and he took an experimental step towards Banner, his mouth going dry.

"It's happening," he said in that whisper talk again since he was not aware of how to breathe while focusing so directly upon it. "Doctor Banner, I want to tell you that I am so sorry. I should never have involved you, but whatever this is, you must promise me to destroy it. Destroy the whole facility. I've left access codes on the laptop. I never want anyone else to go through this again and--"

Mohinder paused and glanced down at himself. He wasn't dead. He hadn't collapsed. In fact, he was doing just fine even though the blood was just sitting in his veins, unused now.

"Am I... Am I still alive? I must be, right? I must have some sort of brain function--?"

Frankly, Bruce was utterly stumped. Everything in his medical, logical mind said that Mohinder Suresh was a corpse. No heart beat, yet he was still functioning. Speaking. Thinking. He reached down and dug a nail briefly into his skin - pain. Not a dream or any other foolish notion. He forced himself to take a slow, deep breath and try to reason this out, even if reason was being utterly defied at this time.

"I suppose technically, no, you are no longer alive." As crazy as that sounded, it still wasn't the craziest thing he knew of. "That... also seems to not be a problem for you at the moment, at least physically." He studied Mohinder, trying to process. "If your blood is no longer pumping, I'm not certain how much longer you'll be physically moving, given that you should grow cold, muscles start to freeze... I would imagine you'll go into rigor mortis. However, this... almost correlates with what I was seeing. That your cells were changing and no longer needed as much oxygen, seemed to be thriving in their near-oxygen-less environment."

"Cells either learn to reproduce or become immortal," Mohinder murmured,. "It's basic cellular biology. Some cells divide to create offspring and then die off. Others never do and conceivably carry on until they are deprived of sustainance. My cells...no longer need sustainance? They're no longer replicating, they're just shifting to cells that do not die?" He ran a hand through his hair, gleaming and perfect. The rest, the dead cells that had sprouted from his scalp before this transformation, laid in clumps on the floor.

He sucked in a breath that he did not need and tried jogging in place-- But that did not matter. He didn't feel muscle strain. His lungs didn't seem to have any other ability save to drive air across his larynx so he could speak.

"You need to scan me. You need--". He was hyperventilating through fear, not for any particular physiological disease. His eyebrows knitted together in the centre of his forehead like they were kissing. He started to pace. "This is madness...this is utter madness!"

It was. It was absolute madness. Nothing of what they were currently witnessing with their own two eyes could be true. This was simply not how things worked. A body did not keep functioning when the heart stopped. It didn't keep speaking when the mind no longer told the lungs to keep breathing. It no longer moved when the muscles had no oxygen to supply fuel to the mitochondria. Mohinder's uncertain analyst seemed to be true despite everything science told him should not be real.

Bruce rubbed a hand down his face only to realize it was faintly shaking. This led to him taking a slow, deep breath, making sure he didn't panic more than he already wanted to, and he held up that hand towards Mohinder. "Stop. STOP. Panicking... will get us nowhere, though I wouldn't mind doing the same thing right now."

He walked towards the glass and started typing into the controls. It was easy to lock down the outer room, a second line of defense. "First, I don't think you're going to explode any longer. Second, we need to run completely different tests now, and keeping you in this bubble won't aid in any of that."

Mohinder made slow work of getting out of the cage. He wasn't afraid of being set off and exploding anymore, but he didn't know what this new state of being could mean for him and it was frightening. He kept to himself, he kept his limbs inward at least, until Banner had set up a bed for him to lay on and started the process of hooking up the machinery.

Out of habit, Mohinder forced himself to breathe. It was a conscious effort on his part, his brain commanding his body to inhale and exhale regularly. That alone made him feel better.

His skin, luminous and flawless now, was still warm to the touch. He had not grown pale and the blood was not pooling at low points in his body. He was not stiffening. He was not becoming a corpse.

"I... This is strange... But I actually... I feel remarkably well."

It shouldn't have been possible. None of it should have! These things happened when the body stopped functioning. In fact, it brought Bruce to briefly touch Mohinder's arm, completely in confusion when it still felt exactly as it should have. Would the other grow cold, as a corpse was want to do after expiring? There was nothing to keep him warm now, right?

"...I have no idea how that's possible," Bruce said on a breath out, looking to the other. He looked- perfect. Better than he ever had, which should have been impossible. "What do you feel? Cold? Stiff? Tired? ...Anything at all?" Because they needed more information and to record anything they could about this scientific impossibility.

He really needed to think on how to answer that question. "I feel... Strong." He closed his eyes, dark lashes highly visible against such bright skin. "It doesn't feel like I even have to think to move... I can feel the air on my skin. I can feel the rotation of the Earth... I can remember every touch, the taste of every meal I've ever had--" He opened his eyes again and brought his hand up to his face to flex his fingers in front of it before his eyes caught Bruce again. "I can hear him," he whispered. "Under your skin. I can hear him like these tiny, pin prick howls."

If Banner wasn't startled enough and allowed Mohinder to touch his face or his arm, the Indian would tell his former mentor that he could feel 'him' too. Mohinder didn't know who 'he' was but he sensed he was different from Bruce... And still part of him too.

Bruce didn't move, staring at the other in what could only be described as horror. Mohinder had never known about the Other Guy. There was no way for him to know the truth of what had happened to him. The touch made him start, ever so slightly, and sent a tremor that more than had the attention of the 'him' within. None of this... none of it made sense. No one could sense Him. Do the things Mohinder was describing except perhaps the rare savant.

"...You..." The words died on his tongue as he unconsciously shook his head in denial. "You speak like..." Could the seizure have done something? "Perhaps... the seizures you suffered created a savant-effect in your mind. Or your... physical death?"

Mohinder took all of Bruce in and slowly shook his head as he sat up. If the other man didn't move away, Mohinder's hand would just keep resting upon his cheek. He would even lightly stroke a thumb against his jaw. Stubble. He could feel the hairs grow in his own body.

"It's not like this. I don't like its like this-- can we get a brain scan? I can just feel-- I can feel so much, Doctor Banner. It's beautiful and it's horrifying."

That second touch did make Bruce pull away, and rather sharply. He never was one for physical touch from people, even before everything that had happened to him, except from someone he had trusted and loved more than any one else. Tony was easy to work with in that sense, as the man seemed to have as much aversion to little touches as he did which was fascinating on the concept of how many women Tony Stark used to go through. Mohinder... much less so, and now, given the context of what Mohinder thought he was hearing and feeling (even if it was true)? No.

"Stay laying down. I'll get that started. We.. we need to know what's happening in there." Which was a good excuse to step away to get the small helm he needed, better a device than the tiny sticky pads but then again Tony wasn't about to allow those pads on him, then carefully fit it to Mohinder's head.

"By everything medical science knows, you should be dead. There should be no brain activity at all. ...This can't be true, not... while you're talking to me and still able to move and clearly think, but the fact you're speaking as if your mental capacity is growing..." Maybe he was rambling more to himself, quiet, nearly under his breath, trying to puzzle through as he set up to do a proper brain scan. "Keep still," he reminded as he began.

What they saw would be beyond stunning to them both.

Staying still was difficult, especially when he could hear his brain being mapped and could feel Tony Stark's thought patterns as they twitched against the cap. It was just left over residue from the person who had worn the device last but it was fascinating just the same. Mohinder closed his eyes until the machine told them that the scans were finished and once the system projected the three dimensional model of Mohinder's incredibly active synapses, the Indian scooted off of the table to stand beside the American with a look of wonder on his face.

He was actively breathing again, since it seemed like a thing he should do. His smile was almost radiant as he manipulated the image to show Bruce a close up of his brain stem.

"My cells are still alive. All of them. But they have evolved passed the need for oxygen. Look. This section of my brain is being transformed into something--" he paused and glanced over his shoulder. "There are too many people on this floor." Six. He could feel six new people.