(no subject)
This is not a lab. There isn't a single bit of stainless steel, and it also lacks sinks, drains, and all the other conveniences one would expect. What it does have is a table, and good lighting, and an outlet. Laptop plugged into an extension cord which runs back toward an outlet typically hidden on the white, so very /white/ walls, the computer has been set up near the QuikID unit. Bahir is in the process of removing the casing with a small screwdriver as his laptop boots up, and another pawn is showing Ellen the way downstairs.
Mickey has more often than not been assigned to Ellen these days, and they make an unlikely pair: bluff, slightly stocky Irishwoman, long, lean, tall ... possibly Viking. But what Mickey has is the ability to retain silence for long periods of time without seeming noticeably creeped out, and this Ellen finds restful.
She has also managed to find Ellen a labcoat. Crisp and white, she wears it over the pale blue of a blouse and the dark grey of her trousers, and feels altogether more at home. With her hands clasped behind her as she is shepherded into the meeting chambers, Ellen looks around her with alert interest, and when confronted with the thrones, she barely gives them more than a blink for high drama. Mickey murmurs a "Right outside," and slips back out through the watchpost. Ellen says, "Hello."
This is not a lab, and Bahir does not have a labcoat. These two facts will /both/ have to be remedied. In the meantime, he is dressed neatly enough in dark jeans and a close-cut black shirt with a faded image printed on the front. His hair is tied in a relatively neat knot, although it is short enough that it has a serious tendency to slip the leash. He looks up as the door opens, and then back down as he finishes with the last screw and eases the cover off, exposing the inner workings of the identification unit. "Hello," he says, setting it to the side and lowering the screwdriver. "Have you seen the blueprints for this? I can bring them up on the screen as you look it over, if you like, and then I can tell you what Dr. Grey and I tried last night."
"I have not examined the blueprints." Ellen paces quickly across the room to join him at the computer and the unit. Her hair is bound in a severe tail at the back of her head, slightly sharpening the angles of her face. She flattens her hand upon the dark surface of the table. There is no real immediate comprehension in her gaze as she studies the guts of the QuikID. But she is used to seeing with other senses than her eyes. "May I see them, please, yes? I should very much like to know what you have accomplished so far."
"Little," Bahir admits with some frustration, and moves to pull the laptop closer and log in. It takes a moment for the boot process to finish and then he weaves his way through folders to draw up blueprints. "Here. That's the overview, and then just use the arrow keys to go through various closer views." He gestures, leaving her to navigate it herself, and moves back a pace. "We've verified their claim: using this, it is possible to identify a mutant in a matter of seconds given a blood sample. It works off blood, but also off blood serum. It does not work off a general tissue sample, or off a cheek swab, or saliva, or anything of the sort. So we figure it's probably identifying a protein in the blood, as we first suspected."
Ellen leans over the computer with a faint frown turning her mouth down at the corners, her gaze intent as she skims through the blueprints. She follows the mouse pointer here, and then there. "It seems to be the most sensible way to determine genetic information at any sort of speed," she says eventually, and reaches to trace her fingertips over the edge of the unit's innards, following the design with her eyes as she feels its result with her fingertips. "So the question becomes what protein any mutant has associated with the X-Factor..."
Bahir inclines his head, taking a seat on the table near the work area. "It could be encoded by the X-Factor, or it could be encoded by a gene universally activated in mutants by the X-Factor. Frankly, we have no idea." He reaches out to shadow a touch over the unit's working edge, avoiding Ellen's fingers as he demonstrates how it would work. "We have a general idea of the size of it just due to the fact that the serum works, as well as the blood, but that's about it."
"Hmm." Ellen narrows a frown at the screen and then looks at the unit proper with renewed intensity, as though she might fathom its secrets merely by staring at it. "That does not do much to narrow it down. Nor is this--" She taps a finger beside the machine itself, angling her head to the side as she eyes it. "--likely to fit conveniently under a microscope. If I could see what it is doing on a minute enough level I could attempt matching it to my own blood. Dr. Grey," the ripple of a sneer that mars her cool voice with the acknowledgment of the name is unavoidable, with a host of associations borne with it, the strongest being the oldest and the darkest, "has worked extensively with the X-Factor in the field of genetics, yes? Can we use her work to rule anything out?"
"Actually, she's the one I was working with yesterday determining what, exactly, it was identifying," Bahir says, leaning back slightly with a narrow glance at Ellen. Gosh, is she about to go crazy? He doesn't worry about it much, simply breathing out a slight sigh. "And if her work could rule anything out, she didn't mention it, and I doubt she'd have held it back. Her work with the X-Factor has been genetic, as you say, not proteomic. I suppose that would be a sensible next step: pulling up what sort of work is being done in that field regarding the X-Factor."
"I have not seen much out there." Ellen straightens again, away from the computer, and takes a deep breath. Old loathing for the Phoenix aside, the edge of disgust may knot her belly, but there is work to be done. Reason is the weapon of this war, not rage. Especially not particularly /old/ rage. "At least, I don't know of anyone working in that area, although it may be that my expertise is limited. It only takes blood, by its mechanism, and studies it? It does not conveniently inject something into its victims?" Her mouth purses as she glances back at her brand new lab partner, and she shakes her head.
"Correct," Bahir says, leaning in across Ellen to pull the computer closer when she finishes with it so that he can minimize the diagrams and go through, pulling up the data from yesterday's tests. There's a low edge of frustration in his features and tone, brought about by a puzzle where they have only the vaguest idea of what the picture will be at the end. "There, have a look for yourself. It correctly identifies mutants, ignoring baselines, just the same as a test for the X-Factor would over a much greater length of time. I haven't seen much work in that area, either, I'm afraid, that we can go off of, either. The next step will likely be, in my opinion, identifying the protein via brute force."
"So the difference between identifying the gene and identifying the protein is measured in hours," Ellen murmurs to herself as she peers at the data, and then lifts a hand to adjust her ponytail, tightening it and tugging a little on the band to ascertain that it will remain steadily in place. "We have no way of determining how they found their protein, since there is no research anywhere to indicate anything even pursuing these lines of thinking. Maddening." She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth a moment and swallows, brow creasing in a deepening frown, and then glances back at Bahir, grimly. "Short of going through the proteome with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass ... well, if that's the task, we must start soon to get anywhere before Ragnarok."
"It is a little maddening," Bahir agrees, leaning forward to look over the unit itself and then back up at the data on the screen. He frowns at it, as if trying to will it into order. "I don't think that we need to go through the whole thing with tweezers and a magnifying glass." He reaches over to start to pull something up on the computer, and then stops. "If we can get a large enough sample study of both mutant and baseline human blood and run an electrophoresis on each sample, we can compare them to try to isolate the protein that is present in the mutants and /not/ in the humans. Lot of grunt work, though, but I think we can speed up the computational half using Natalie's algorithms."
Ellen glances around the stark drama of the room, cleanly lit and spacious and definitely lacking in any particular tools for applied biochemistry. She rubs at her temples with the first two fingers of either hand. "I cannot imagine that blood should be too much of a problem with the resources of your organization at our disposal," she says, her voice thinning a little with exasperation as she adds, "I am ill-equipped for electrophoresis at the moment, however, and as to the computations ... how fast?" She looks a little skeptical. When Ellen did her principal scientific work, computers ran MS-DOS and she typed reports on WordStar.
"Oh." Bahir seems a bit surprised as Ellen points out the easy availability of blood. After all, they are the Inner Circle! "No, I suppose that shouldn't be a problem." He regards her with a certain wary curiosity. "I have lab space in Queens that has everything we could need and more. How feasible is it for you to go there? Not at all?"
Ellen looks at him a little warily. "I am not very portable," she says, caution bringing weighted gravity to her words as she tips her head. "It is difficult enough keeping my face from sight within the confines of this single building, and it is recent enough since you rescued me from prison ... but," she lifts her chin and raises her eyebrows a little. "--perhaps if we worked at night, with no one else there, and traveled there in a dark car. I do not imagine that that would be very convenient for you, Mr. al-Razi."
"Little enough has been convenient in the past--." Week? Month? ...years? Bahir's expression is slightly rueful. "It would be convenient if we had facilities here. Maybe I'll bring that up with Frost. In the interim, perhaps we can sneak you out and over there every so often, but that is really up to Dr. Lensherr. Would you like to, or not?"
"For a long term project convenience is not only a matter of comfort but of efficiency," Ellen says, pressing her knuckles down against the dark surface of the table and spending a moment staring at the QuikID unit a trifle blackly. The idea of mastering it and turning it to their own purposes seemed much simpler when it dawned on her like fire, inspiration its own madness. She sighs, and says quietly, "I would very much like to be of use."
"I'll ask, then." If Bahir is a trifle uncomfortable at the prospect of asking favors of both monarchs, it shows only in a slight, restless shift of posture as he straightens off the table. "In the meantime, we can go over the data." He pushes out a chair with his foot for her -- such manners! -- and then drops into one next to it as he pulls the laptop over. "Double-check our work. Then make arrangements for the blood samples, and for the lab time, or lab space."
Ellen looks to the chairs, and as he sits, folds herself neatly into the one he has indicated. Her ankles cross neatly beneath it as she perches beside him, her carriage as erect seated as it tends to be standing; and she angles her head slightly to one side as she resumes her study of the screen. "Very well," she says, with a slight outward turn of a hand in a gesture of acknowledgment before it falls to her lap. For some reason, she says, "Thank you." Then she turns her focus upon the task at hand so as to get to work.
Ellen remembers what it is like to be a molecular biologist in the 1990s.