Moira drifted through her now-silent, partially cleared-out lab, feeling as directionless as an unmoored boat. The letter, though long-since crumpled and incinerated, rang through her head like a death knell.
To whom it may concern, regarding your funding…
The first paragraph was gibberish about the company's pride and standing, only emphasizing the codes she'd apparently broken, despite the fact Futura supposedly valued scientific advancement.
Fools…
Science was an inherently risky business. Scientists through the ages had lost peer respect, careers, friends and family, limbs, and lives for their work. And while they might not all be hailed as heroes, their data was still taken, used, built off of to create a better world. Even the most questionable scientific methodologies all had some benefit in the end; studying early cancer research had taught her that much.
So why was her work be any different?
In light of this, we must inform you that the publication of your paper has been stopped due to the failure of others to reproduce your results. Upon further review of your article, it has been determined that you have utilized unsanctioned methods for research. Therefore, we regret to tell you that your funding has been cut, and that Futura Genetics will disavow any association with you or your methods.
What a load of bollocks. They pulled her funding because of the media firestorm that had ignited in the wake of her paper. Critics had gone so far as to start calling her a "warmonger", all due to the fact that her suggested work was apparently reminiscent of the work done by pre-Omnic Crisis scientists. Add that to the fact that they and even Overwatch itself had loudly derided both her and the company's moral standing, and Futura suddenly wanted to wash its hands of her for good.
So here she was.
You are expected to vacate your work-space within the week. Please dispose of any residual biohazardous material and leave the space as you found it. Note that attempting to steal equipment or samples or damaging the equipment will be grounds for further disciplinary action.
This place of frantic, thrilling discovery, her most definitive pride and joy, now sat as lifeless as a rotting corpse, the remains of intelligent, productive human activity decaying into vacant, empty silence. Not even billions of dollars' worth of equipment and materials could circumvent that most obstinate of roadblocks that was human caution. Without funding, her ideas were useless to anybody, and she was utterly purposeless. After this fiasco, no one would even dare to consider her application if it had her name tied to it.
Was this really the end of her career?
She clenched her fists. No. She still had a few days left to test and a couple particular iteration of the BRNS she'd been working with were on the brink of full functionality. They couldn't stop this last test, not when she was so close…
She located the BRN sample and extracted it from its casing. It shimmered with an eerily dark-purple hue as she held it to the light. These nanites were dangerous; whereas her other iteration had been far more tempered in their abilities to allograft from cells to repair physical harm, these were, for lack of a better word, supercharged. Her previous tests had shown them destroying healthy cells of her test animals in favor of repairing more grievous damage elsewhere, so much so that if the subject's wounds were severe enough, the attempt to heal the injury would wind up killing the subject.
But these BRNs were only the first part of her test, the catalyst for the true experiment. The serum she was planning to test was supposed to hyper-accelerate the growth of new cells and repair structural damage to DNA. A miracle in a syringe, made not by gods, but by intelligent human minds. She put the BRNs aside and pulled the serum from its protective housing. The liquid in this vial repelled the light, like ink or oil. She had no idea if it would work, not function at all, or incapacitate or kill her.
But she had no one to test it on besides herself.
She eyed the vials for a few more seconds, then turned and flipped on the monitoring equipment before pulling the cover off what her colleagues referred to as "The Nest". A reclining gel-cushioned chair lined with all sorts of sensors to wirelessly monitor vitals, it was used to cradle and watch human subjects in real time when human trials were sanctioned. At one point, a nervous but willing man had laid here under her watchful eye while she tested the healing capacity of her first BRNs, a seamless, successful trial that had sparked her first paper.
This time would be far more dangerous.
She took her lab coat off and considered her right arm for a long moment, running her fingers up her differentiated muscles and her thin blue veins. How would this feel? Pain was certainly assured…
She swept that thought aside. Enough dawdling. She was running out of valuable time.
She spread the right armrest in sterile draping, gathered her samples and two clean syringes, and woke the recording equipment. As per usual protocol, it asked questions; how many times she'd run trials, whether the trials had been successful, and what kind of subject she was studying. She hesitated for a mere second on this last question before entering HUMAN. The screen flashed orange, displaying a cautionary exclamation-inside-a-triangle. A warning flashed across the screen, informing her that the experimental material wasn't ready for human trials, but she ignored it, instead adjusting the camera so it had a perfect view. She sat back in the chair and prepared both syringes. A sort of calm settled over her. This was what she'd been doing her whole life; hypothesis, test, revision of hypothesis, new hypothesis.
This was just another step forward.
"Dr. Moira O'Deorain, commencing human testing…on myself... June 22." Her voice faltered just once, then steadied. "Until this point, I have only tested the cellular hyper-accelerant on mammals as large as rabbits, but it has proved effective in increasing cell regeneration by an exponent of 49. To simulate damage, I will first be intramuscularly administering a BRN unit shown to cause microperforations in all tissue types. After sixty seconds, I will then administer the accelerant, which will increase my cellular growth rate, counteracting the damage. The BRN unit is synced to an automatic shut-down, which I will trigger sixty seconds after injecting the accelerant."
She lowered her gaze towards her mostly-bare right arm, tore open a sterile wipe, laid her arm on the testing surface, and swabbed a large portion of her inner arm. It wouldn't do to have her research complicated by infection. She picked up the first syringe, uncapped it, and, mentally bracing herself, she injected the contents.
The pain was almost immediate. The Biotic Reconstitution Nanobots squeezed their way between the muscle fibers of her arm, ripping and tearing at healthy cells as they went. Sensory nerve cells simultaneously fired, sending damage reports in the form of burning pain radiating up her arm. She clutched her upper arm and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming, pitching forward in the seat, digging her fingernails into the armrest. She glanced in desperation at her sixty-second timer, dismay arcing through her as she realized how long she would have to wait. She looked down at her arm; violently purple streaks were growing and spreading towards her fingers from the injection site, swelling in size as the pain bloated. She had to stop this now.She grasped for the second syringe, but only succeeded in knocking it off the tray. She staggered from the chair, clutching her blazing arm and scrambling furiously for the syringe. The monitors chirped in distress as they lost her vital signs, but she barely heard them. By some random chance, her half-blind fumbling found the syringe. She yanked off the sterile cap with her teeth, nearly stabbing herself in the face, and rammed the needle into her skin.
Instead of relieving the pain, however, the injection had the opposite effect.
Electricity seemed to arc through her, knocking her flat to the floor with its sheer intensity. A strangled cry escaped her. Running feet pounded far away, and someone called her name. Hands grasped her shoulders, rolling her onto her back. She looked through a red haze at the panic-creased face of one of her colleagues. Another surge of pain, this one stronger than any that had come before it, swept over her, and the last thing she heard was her colleague screaming for help.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
"Moira?"
A voice, female, intruded on the blackness surrounding her. Her right arm felt eerily numb and heavy.
"Dr. O'Deorain, can you hear me?"
She opened her eyes. A familiar, female face peered over her, concern etched in every line. Her blond hair was neatly tied back, and she wore a doctor's white coat over her clothing.
"Doctor Ziegler?" Moira glanced from side to side, noticing the Overwatch logo plastered on the coffee mug on a side table. She tried to sit up, but Ziegler pushed her back down. Anger dug into her. Why hadn't they taken her to a proper hospital? "Why am I here?"
"Your colleagues heard a commotion in your study. They came in to see what was going on, and when they found you lying on the floor, they weren't sure if a normal hospital could reverse whatever you'd done to yourself. So they called Overwatch. It was a lucky thing I happened to be close enough to respond."
"I didn't ask for your help," she responded coolly, propping herself up.
"I know you and I don't exactly have the best history, but you were in a bad position. I don't know what you did to yourself, but it got out of hand. It took a unit of healing nanites to stabilize the degradation, and there will be permanent damage to your arm and fingers. I wouldn't-"
Ignoring the warning, Moira tugged her right arm out from under the blanket and observed the damage. Her skin had turned a pale, unsightly gray, thick, knotted scars marring once smooth flesh. Her nails had grown to an unseemly length and thickened; they looked more like claws now. She flexed her hand and winced as shooting pain ran up into her shoulder.
"I am uncertain whether your injury will properly heal," Angela said tentatively. "Your cells showed signs of rapid regeneration and decay, which I assume was part of what you were trying to test. That may help but I will need time to study your condition and-"
Moira located the IV in her arm and pulled it out. "Thank you, but I no longer have need of your services," she told the woman briskly.
"Dr. O'Deorain, surely you realize that-"
Moira overrode her. "I can take care of myself, Doctor," she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and standing up. "Though it doesn't help that you stifled me. If I had access to my research, I could have maybe corrected this." She motioned with her bad arm.
"If you choose to stay, I can maybe help you-"
"No, I don't think that will be necessary." She ran her left fingers across her dead-looking flesh, her skin only vaguely registering the touch. This wouldn't do at all. She needed use of both hands. But Angela "Mercy" Zeigler wasn't the person to give her functionality back. "I can take care of myself."
"O'Deorain-" Moira noted the significance of the Swiss woman neglecting her title and the tonal shift in her voice. "-this kind of foolishness was what got you into so much trouble in the first place."
She looked up at the doctor. "Don't try to claim the moral high ground here, Ziegler. You've created successful nanites that effectively heal most wounds, and yet they are not widely used. You know it could save so many lives, and you withhold it...Why? Out of fear that it will be misused somehow? Perhaps reverse-engineered to harm instead?" She collected her things and straightened. "You might have managed to stall this," she flexed her hand again, "but there will come a time when your ethics will block your way to an urgent discovery and others will suffer." She let the comment settle between them for a moment. "Good day to you."
She brushed by the woman and did not look back.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVV
July 14
The cellular hyperaccelarant I tested twenty-two days ago was only a partial failure. Though the damage to my right hand might never heal completely, the accelerant did prevent lasting damage. I have begun to regain some feeling, though I will likely need to seek a surgeon to correct the problem in its entirety. Keep notes of June 22nds' trial to refer back to when attempting to improve the accelerant.
Side note: Futura allowed me to gather the rest of my things, the recordings being the most valuable things left, apart from my lab coat. I'm not sure where I will find funding anymore, but I've got to keep looking…
VVVVVVVVVV
Hello, my dear readers. I hope you enjoyed it.
Constipated Genius should get credit for some of the ideas here, as well as thanks for beta-reading. If you liked my Moira fic, I HIGHLY recommend his, which is a fantastically well-written memoir telling pieces of Moira's early journey.
Cheers!