002. Labwork

[coffeenottea]

Will eyes the assignment with a shudder. He's qualified to dissect, but that doesn't mean he likes it. Magnus has a special project this morning, something to do with Mulder and a fairly uneasy looking Scully, so the autopsy is on his list of things to do

Comments

[doctor_weevil]

Owen turns around and rolls his eyes teasingly at Will. "Far too busy to be concerned with the likes of you, my dear Doctor Frankenstein." He abandons the scalpel he was playing with (never let it be said he learns from his mistakes) and comes over.

"What've we got? Anyone interesting?"

[coffeenottea]

"Yeah, a bit," Will hands Owen the folder he's holding. "They're called 'Keepers'. They're ugly, smelly, a little bit gooey and the Guardians of everything the Cabal doesn't want out and running around."

"Feel like taking one apart?"

[doctor_weevil]

Owen smiles. "If I must." He can't wait to get started. Rolling up the sleeves of his lab coat, he looks through the folder. "So how'd we get hold of this one? Fight it to the death, did you, Zimmerman?"

He is joking, but a slight note of protectiveness enters his voice as he considers the possibility of Will doing just that - and getting hurt by the ugly beast on the slab.

[coffeenottea]

"Oh no," Will shakes his head. "I do 'shrinkwrapping' as Ashley puts it. I'm only useful in combat with a gun, and we all know how useful those aren't."

He unzips the body bag and points towards the tray of tools. "I'm a little rusty on my physiology, so I'm going to leave that up to you."

[doctor_weevil]

"Indeed we do," Owen agrees at the gun comment, fingers instinctively going to the wound in his chest. He realises it and laughs self-deprecatingly. "Those things'll be the death of you," he adds in a quavering old man's voice, before turning to the tray of tools.

Focusing on the task at hand, he selects a scalpel and prepares for the Y-shaped incision.

[coffeenottea]

"I do want to live long enough to get grumpy in my old age," Will muses as he watches Owen work. "Magnus says they have very unique physiology and she would like to know if this one matches his ugly North American counterparts."

"Ashley and her team brought him back from China."

[doctor_weevil]

"You can get grumpy when you're young, too," Owen grins. "I do. As you well know. Right, so this beastie? Well, physiology seems basically human..." He pauses to pull back skin and muscle, hands skilled and deft with the tools. "... so-o far. With a torso and face like this, though, we can assume he's really not. I mean, look at those teeth." He wipes a finger across the Keeper's face. "It's like they were bred to attack. Defend. Protect things... worse than they are. And the abnormalities look to be on a genetic level..." More muscle is pulled back to expose the ribcage. "Are you expecting him to be any different?"

[coffeenottea]

"No, not really." Will helps Owen crack the rib cage. "If they're different, it means there are two separate breeds of them. If they're the same, well, it means someone's making them somewhere and deploying them all over the world. That's a pretty creepy thing, you know?"