OOM: A Simple Experiment (Pain In The Heart)
As experiments that Hodgins and Zach had designed went, this was a simple one.
Well. It was supposed to be.
A simple reverse process to recreate denture medium. Gormogon-still out there, still a threat, still eating people-had worn dentures to gnaw on his victims. Knowing what kind would give them some idea of the whackjob’s resources. And Dr. Saroyan, smiling, had shooed them off to the lab to set it up.
They had taken all proper safety precautions. God knows, Hodgins had gone over those precautions in his head a dozen times, and there was nothing more, reasonably, they should have done. Zach had been behind the portable Plexiglass blast shield, his hands stuck through in the heavy rubber gloves that would allow him to ‘safely’ mix the polymer.
Hodgins hadn’t even stood by to watch the chemicals being mixed. He’d wandered over to the work table to get the mold for the dentures. As Zach had asked him to.
The next thing Hodgins had known, the blast had thrown him forward into the steel work table. The lab was filled with smoke, and a sickening smell that Hodgins, in the momentary shock, couldn’t immediately identify. He had slid from the table to the floor, coughing, trying to orient himself in the confusion of smoke and wailing alarms, and in the sudden presence of his coworkers and half the Security department.
“Hodgins!” Brennan had said.
“All right. All right. I’m okay,” Hodgins had replied automatically, pushing himself up off the floor. Looking around for Zach.
He knew it was bad before he could even see Zach, based on what he could hear. Oh, my God, Zach? and Okay, a medical team’s on its way. Oh my-I’ll get the burn kit.
And on what he couldn’t hear. Namely Zach himself.
Then people parted enough for him to see. Zach on the floor, pinned under the blast shield which was now spattered with blood. His hands were still stuck through the ports, but the gloves had been burned away. And his hands…
It should have just been a simple experiment.
Well. It was supposed to be.
A simple reverse process to recreate denture medium. Gormogon-still out there, still a threat, still eating people-had worn dentures to gnaw on his victims. Knowing what kind would give them some idea of the whackjob’s resources. And Dr. Saroyan, smiling, had shooed them off to the lab to set it up.
They had taken all proper safety precautions. God knows, Hodgins had gone over those precautions in his head a dozen times, and there was nothing more, reasonably, they should have done. Zach had been behind the portable Plexiglass blast shield, his hands stuck through in the heavy rubber gloves that would allow him to ‘safely’ mix the polymer.
Hodgins hadn’t even stood by to watch the chemicals being mixed. He’d wandered over to the work table to get the mold for the dentures. As Zach had asked him to.
The next thing Hodgins had known, the blast had thrown him forward into the steel work table. The lab was filled with smoke, and a sickening smell that Hodgins, in the momentary shock, couldn’t immediately identify. He had slid from the table to the floor, coughing, trying to orient himself in the confusion of smoke and wailing alarms, and in the sudden presence of his coworkers and half the Security department.
“Hodgins!” Brennan had said.
“All right. All right. I’m okay,” Hodgins had replied automatically, pushing himself up off the floor. Looking around for Zach.
He knew it was bad before he could even see Zach, based on what he could hear. Oh, my God, Zach? and Okay, a medical team’s on its way. Oh my-I’ll get the burn kit.
And on what he couldn’t hear. Namely Zach himself.
Then people parted enough for him to see. Zach on the floor, pinned under the blast shield which was now spattered with blood. His hands were still stuck through the ports, but the gloves had been burned away. And his hands…
It should have just been a simple experiment.