Chapter 22: Magical Healing Legumes
"Stop squirming." Calliope scolded calmly. Her eyes remaining intensely locked on the site of the wound she was still examining, while her gloved fingers probed the edges of the tattered flesh. She did her best not to allow her focus to drift, as interesting a study Cell might have proven at any other time.
"I'm not squirming." Cell responded, turning his head just enough to regard her with a frown. Apparently, he was determined to keep the strong man act going as long as possible. Calliope frowned behind the surgical mask she had put on, and with her gloved hand that was still clean gently pushed his head back into the proper place so she could get a good look at his wound.
Initially, she had been confident in her ability to treat the injury. That feeling was immediately dashed when she started the examination. To the casual observer, it may have looked like a gnarly wound with blood that was the wrong color and nothing more. But she had extensive knowledge of anatomy, and of trends that were present throughout typical vertebrates. Everything here looked... wrong, to some degree or another.
The wound was small enough, perhaps half the size of her palm, perhaps half an inch deep. It was high on Cell's shoulder, close to the thick bulk of his neck. It was enough to give Calliope a show of his peculiar biology; the muscle cords that were too thick and oddly interwoven, no fat deposits to speak of, and other small structures that were nearly too small for the naked eye to see.
She had a small moment of panic in the realization that she was completely out of her depth. How much alien DNA had there been quoted in the documentation left to her regarding Cell? The majority of it, Calliope mentally snapped back at herself.
Cell wasn't one of her giant goats. He wasn't a random person pulled off the street. There were no textbooks and protocols that she could follow to the letter. The best she could do, Calliope rationalized to herself, was extrapolate from her knowledge. This should be exciting to get a chance to carry out such an examination on him- she was sure there were leagues of scientists that would give their life for this particular opportunity.
It had been purely speculating on the matter of his armor, given how little she knew about his biological workings. Now she found herself nearly wishing that it wasn't removable. Cell still cut a striking figure with his black wings, too handsome, too human-like for her own comfort. Calliope fought to keep her eyes on the one small area of flesh she was concerned with.
"Like something you see?" The question snapped Calliope out of her thoughts, and drew her attention to the side-eyed look Cell gave here with a smirk.
The hypothetical leagues of scientists probably didn't need to worry about their subject flirting with them.
"Hm? No. I'm trying to figure out why your tendons look the way they do." She frowned with her answer and was thankful for the surgical mask she had put on covered her now-warming cheeks. Calliope decided to ignore it. "Considering I'm unfamiliar with your... particular anatomy, I'm trying to figure out the best way of going about this."
Right. This was fine, she thought to herself. How much of her life lately had just been playing it by ear? Too much to make her comfortable, but enough that it almost felt like a new normal. At the very least she was thankful that Cell had put some pants on. Whether it was something Goku had said or just an easy end to what would have been an ongoing argument, she couldn't be bothered to figure out. But by the time she called Cell back to the small patient room where simple procedures could be carried out, he was wearing the scrub pants he had been refusing before, and the matter wasn't mentioned further.
"You know, you probably don't have to go through all this. I could just eat the damn bean Goku gave us and heal the wound." Cell grumbled as if he wasn't enjoying the attention he was getting on the exam room table. He gave a soft grunt as her fingers brushed flesh that would usually be protected under skin. But he managed to remain still, head tilted to one side to give her better access to the area. "Alternatively, I'm sure it will heal on its own if you stopped prodding at it."
"You're going to get actual medical treatment first, and then if you feel like it, you can eat the magical healing legume, or whatever." She said firmly. While Calliope did think it was a nice gesture for Goku to have left them with what was insisted to be a restorative 'senzu bean', she dismissed them as being as effective as any other 'superfood miracle cure-alls' that were on the market. "You may be okay with letting open wounds fester, but I'm not."
Before she could even begin to review the information and computer pilfered from the Solstice labs they had to finish going through the decontamination chamber- which shouldn't take much longer at this point. But first, Calliope wanted to deal with the injury to Cell's shoulder that still hadn't healed- even if he kept insisting it wasn't bothering him. The fact that every time her fingers so much as brushed the exposed flesh brought on the slightest of twitches in his shoulder and soft, throaty grunts told a different story.
Following that train of thought, Calliope could practically kick herself for forgetting to utilize the pain relievers she had pulled out along with the other supplies. Not that Cell didn't deserve the pain he was it, all things considered. Between the multitudes he had slaughtered, casually proposed genocide, and every ounce of stress he had brought on her, she entertained a thought of letting him deal with a bit of pain. In the next breath, the idea didn't sit well with her.
Her train of thought was thoroughly derailed when Cell had turned his attention back to her and with a slight frown and reached to brushed his fingers over the sorest part of her neck. It was a gentle touch yet still set her teeth on edge. The memory of Violet throttling her on the floor flashed back through her mind, and it took all her restrain not to slap Cell's hand away.
"I'm fine." She insisted, a little harsher than intended before Cell could say anything about her mild bumps and bruises. Nothing was broken or sprained even. She had suffered worse climbing trees as a child.
"You certainly don't look fine." He said with a frown, and let his hand drop back down to his side.
What had she been thinking about? Pain management. Right. She shook herself back into the right frame of mind, already turning away to the tray of supplies she had prepared. "On a scale of one to ten- one being no pain and ten being the worst pain you can imagine- how much does it hurt?"
Cell didn't stop to think before giving the slightest chuckle and replying, "Barely registers as a twinge. Zero."
"Really." Calliope had a hard time believing Cell's front as anything more than bravado. As tempting as it was to jab a finger in the deepest part of the exposed purplish flesh to see how much of a reaction he would have, she restrained herself. Instead, she rolled her eyes and carried on. "Okay. If you say so."
She unpacked a fresh hypodermic needle, drew out approximately the recommended dosage of anesthetic, and turned back to Cell. The exam table they used had to be adapted to his back's anatomy- pillows to prop him up while his wings splayed out widely to either side.
"This is a local anesthetic, should help numb the area." She said this as she was already swabbing the area around the gash with alcohol. Gingerly she slid the needle just around the edges of the wound, taking care to make sure the medicine got all around the injured flesh. This drew an initial hiss of discomfort from Cell, who then went quiet and stiff as she worked to five small, measured injections throughout the area.
She wasn't even sure if lidocaine would work, Calliope realized with some annoyance. Not without an amount of experimenting that she wasn't sure Cell would consent to. After a short time, long enough for the medicine to numb the nerves, she broke the silence that had fallen in the exam room, "Better?"
"... Yes, it's better." Cell begrudgingly admitted, frowning as his gaze alternated between the ceiling, down towards the affected shoulder, and Calliope herself. He muttered bitterly to himself, as if in thought, "But it should have healed by now."
Calliope fell quiet for a short time too. This must have been a sensitive subject for him, she assumed. Cell must have grown used to the idea of being invincible. To be laid out on her table now, by the bite of a random Solstice staff member gone rabid, that must have been unthinkable to him.
"Well, that's one thing we can agree on. For anyone else, I wouldn't be surprised that it's not healing." She said eventually in a quiet, measured voice. "But I've seen you regenerate a not-insignificant amount of body mass in a matter of seconds and laugh it off. So this is a bit concerning." By then she was happily engrossed in cleaning out the wound properly but did catch when Cell perked up.
"Ah, right. I forgot you got to watch that little spat with Vegeta. Well, I hope you enjoyed the show." Cell said with clear amusement, returning to his usual bravado. He went on as if recalling a particularly fond memory. "Let me tell you that whole fight, easy as it was, totally worth it just to see the look on his face."
"Hmm." Calliope hummed in acknowledgment, though she had mostly managed to tune him out. She successfully managed to avoid thinking about that day, the stress, how she and her team could only sit back and watch. Thinking about it now would change nothing, and she decided to press the memories away as best as she could. There were more important things to worry about, reminded herself.
Moving on in the procedure, she had a short stack of gauze pressed firmly against the wound to stem further bleeding. Not that the wound was bleeding very much, rather slowly seeping, though not properly coagulating. She briefly wondered what kind of results she'd get if she had a chance to run an analysis on Cell's blood. She reminded herself to gather a vial or two, not only for the sake of curiosity but potentially to test how it reacted to the black ichor samples she had collected.
Back to the task at hand, she tossed the gauze aside into a waiting bin. She was already taking up a scalpel and eyeing up Cell's wound, and still hadn't seen any sign of spontaneous regeneration. Some of the tissue still had streaks of black, but it wasn't clear whether that was normal or a result of black ichor saturating the muscle fibers. She decided to slice away a small layer to confirm.
"Speaking of amazing, once in a lifetime shows," Cell continued, segueing to a different topic while she was mid-slice, with no hint of pain in his manner, "I hope you saved the date for my tournament."
Calliope restrained a grumble in her throat, trying to focus as best as she could on the task at hand. Lifting away a small section of the tissue revealed a healthy, bright indigo that bled anew. What she assumed was a healthy shade, anyway. She carefully removed the slice with small forceps and placed it in a waiting surgical bowl.
"I hadn't really thought about it." She started rather calmly, mentally too tired to argue about how ridiculous the idea of holding a tournament for the fate of the world was, "I suppose I'll watch it on whatever channel has the best resolution."
"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a ringside seat? I'm sure it would be a much more exciting show that way."
"With the way you guys fight? Dust kicked up everywhere, high winds, flying rocks? No. I'm good with watching on a TV from the comfort of my office." If she could get back to her office, the thought immediately followed. It was more likely she'd be spending her time here, in quarantine, while Cell gallivanted off to fight.
"Suit yourself, but I'm telling you, you'll be missing out." It sounded like that should have been the end of the conversation as Cell settled back enough that she could continue excising tissue. He spoke up again, thoughtfully. "... Though, you may need to find a different place to watch."
"Why?" Calliope sighed through her nose and paused with frustration at the constant interruptions to her attention.
"Well apparently there's some kind of power outage, and someone's lab doesn't have functioning generators." Cell sounded somewhat annoyed himself, no doubt over having to put up with Nash earlier in the evening. Then, seeming to forget whatever had happened, his tone lightened, "But you know, there's no better resolution than ringside."
"I would have working generators if someone-" She stopped herself short and took a deep breath. Quarantine was not going to go smoothly if they couldn't remain civil. There wasn't enough room to think about her lab, or how the maintenance people for the generators were supposed to come that week, or how she was going to the doors and ceiling repaired. Then the fact dawned on her that the Minnows BioSolutions lab in Nicky Town was no longer her concern. Her resignation wasn't even 24 hours old. Calliope focused her attention back on Cell's wound, slicing into another section, careful of the particular structures. "Doesn't matter, I'll figure it out later."
The room fell to an uneasy quiet again while she worked. But the thought of what used to be her lab, Nicky Town, the quartet she had left behind nagged at the back of her mind. It took effort for her to work up the nerve to ask about them.
"Speaking of my lab... You... Didn't kill my IT nerds, did you?" She was almost positive even before asking that there would be, minimum, two corpses that would need to be cleaned up at her lab in Nicky Town. Nash seemed to have an odd obsession with rubbing Cell the wrong way, so he was mostly likely already dead.
"Hm? No, of course not..." After saying this in a way that bordered on offended, as if killing innocent bystanders wouldn't be in the realm of possibilities. Cell then sounded more thoughtful as he looked away to a far wall. "Well, unless you count that idiot Lorenzo... Though I'm pretty sure we weren't too high up when I dropped him..."
Calliope had been setting another thin slice of tissue aside, but she froze at that comment. She had completely forgotten about Lorenzo. Internally she cursed herself for over scheduling her evening.
At her silence Cell turned his head about enough to pin her with a look. His question seemed innocent enough, "You wouldn't happen to know why your nerds kidnapped him, would you?"
"Um... I might." She said stiffly, plopped the thin slice of flesh into the waiting bowl. "I also don't want to talk about it."
Cell looked at her for a long moment with an oddly thoughtful gaze. Then, to Calliope's surprise, he shrugged with his uninjured shoulder and appeared to let the subject go. "Fine, fine. I won't pry."
"Wait, really?" She blinked with surprise, and couldn't stop herself from asking.
"Yes, really." He watched her for a moment more before rolling his eyes. "Oh don't look at me like that. You don't want to talk about it, so we won't talk about it."
Narrowing her eyes, she was tried to figure out if this was a new variety of head-game Cell was trying out. He always seemed to find a way to push her buttons, and Calliope knew that the majority of the times had to be intentional. She wanted to make a sarcastic remark about how now he was respecting boundaries, but she bit her tongue.
"Although," Cell sighed and sounded casual as ever as he spoke, "If you were planning on say, torturing Lorenzo for one reason or another, I think I would be the last person to judge you."
"I'm just about done excising the affected tissue," Calliope said as calmly as she could manage. The change of topic was as much for informing Cell as it was to try and avoid one she would rather not talk about. "Hopefully whatever is reducing your ability to heal is localized to this wound."
"Okay, okay, fine, I'll stop."
There was a small increase in bleeding, which Calliope immediately tended to by pressing a short stack of gauze into the wound and applied pressure. She spared a glance for the surgical bowl full of thin-slices of tissue- each one stained with blackish striations while the other side appeared healthy. The thought tickled in the back of her head that whatever was suppressing Cell's ability to regenerate was found within the sins of the Solstice lab.
Whatever substance was the cause would need to be isolated, tested, perhaps altered to give a proven systemic reaction. Her train of thought was interrupted moments later when Cell spoke up again.
"Well, when you do feel like talking about it."
"Which I'm not going to." She managed to cut in mildly.
"Sure you won't." Now Cell sounded closer to his usual teasing self, while giving her a sly smile nad a side-eye. "I'm sure whatever Lorenzo did to deserve such treatment doesn't weigh on your mind an ounce."
"Not as much as whatever has been going on here. Again, an infection that turns people into crazy screaming monsters trumps everything else." While she managed to say it rather matter-of-factly, Calliope did her best to think about the situation rationally. Without thinking about the earlier terror of trying to escape the Solstice lab. She didn't even know if this was a virus, or bacteria, or some kind of chemical concoction.
After a minute of heavy silence, Calliope lifted the gauze away from Cell's shoulder, only to find that the flesh had knitted itself back together. All that remained of the wound was a smearing of purplish blood over the white skin.
"And, point goes to modern medicine." She said dully as she rolled away from the table Cell was laying on to toss the gauze away in the appropriate bio-hazardous materials receptacle. When she rolled her stool back over he was already sitting up, looking over the area she had been working on and gave a testing flex of his arm. "Better?"
"Much." Cell nodded, appearing pleased. He then turned to her while she was still cleaning up and disposing of equipment. "Well, thank you for seeing to that. I greatly appreciate your care."
"I-Yeah. No problem." She had been halfway through stripping the latex gloves off her hands when she paused, suddenly feeling like the entire exchange was incredibly awkward. After how irregular their relationship had been up to that point- Calliope feeling nothing but disdain and Cell constantly making light of her stresses- the conversation seemed out of the natural order of things.
She scrapped the used, disposable equipment to avoid cluttering up the small space. Replacing her gloves with a new set and took up a clipboard with what paper she could find flipped to show the blank back. Calliope sat back down on the stool to slid back over to the side of the table Cell still occupied. She wrote quick notes to herself, wanting to take down some kind of information in case it might be useful should he prove to be infected later. She did her best to ignore Cell's gaze on her.
"Right, I want to get some baseline vitals." She said stiffly, setting the clipboard to the side, within reach. "Then a blood sample, is that okay?"
"Do what you have to." Cell leaned to peer over her shoulder, clearly reading over the notes she was writing. He said pointedly, "Your handwriting is terrible."
"Hold still." Calliope rolled her eyes, ignoring the comment for now. People had always complained of her handwriting, that it was hardly legible, and usually ended up asking for documents to be sent via email. She didn't understand the fuss. She could read back what she put down fine. Most of the time.
For the next several minutes she went through a series of simple-to-execute tests that should provide information to compare to later on. All the while Cell managed to hold back most comments, and Calliope noted down results while thinking aloud. Thankfully the experience went smoothly- through a blood pressure test with a cuff that was nearly at its size limit over Cell's muscles, drawing blood that was relatively uneventful, an eye exam to test pupillary response, to simply taking his temperature.
"You know, I c-" Cell had started to speak around the thermometer that was in his mouth.
"Don't talk." Calliope was quick to cut him off, eyeing the thermometer and mentally recalculating how long it would take to give an accurate temperature. She ignored Cell rolling his eyes at the interruption and noted down the results with one hand while the other pulled the thermometer from his lips. "105.5 Fahrenheit. Huh"
"I can give you literally all the information you're testing for." Were the first words out of his mouth as soon as the thermometer was removed, his voice hinting at annoyance.
"I still like to check with legitimate medical devices." Calliope shrugged off the matter. She had taken up her notes again, backing away to a more comfortable distance from Cell, which wasn't much given the conservative size of the room. A thought struck her that prompted her to pause in her note-taking, "Are all these results coming back normal? Your biology is decidedly unique, so I don't have anything to compare to."
"Aside from the bite wound, yes, everything is normal."
"Okay, well then these will serve as acceptable baselines to compare to should you turn out to be infected with..." Her voice trailed off, thinking of the papers and laptop she had pilfered from Violet's lab, and the important fact that they may hold answers. While she had trailed off for nearly half a minute in thought, her eyes staring thoughtfully at a far wall, she then noticed Cell staring at her curiously. She suddenly spoke up, taking a moment to the still clean looking gloves she had been wearing, "Actually, I'm gonna go check that out."
Before Calliope could so much as move a muscle towards her new goal of uncovering the current mystery, she was frozen in place by Cell's very sudden, very close approach. He was close enough to be unsettling, with a mischievous gleam in his eyes similar to that morning. While he leaned closer, a warm hand slipping the mask down from her face, she instinctively leaned back. In a moment of panic, Calliope had just enough time to bring her clipboard up to block Cell.
"Um... What are you doing?" She asked, confident tones abandoning her in the moment. Her face grew warm and flush, uncomfortable with the sudden close proximity she found them in.
Cell gave pause, looking briefly bewildered at the question and her prompt blockade. He answered back, with uncharacteristic hesitation, "Trying to show you my appreciation and affection...?"
"Okay. Um. Well." Calliope found herself wincing as she fumbled for words. She was acutely aware of how warm the air was with Cell so close, and the awkward angle her neck had to adapt to look up at him. "It's not the most appropriate time to do that... Quarantine, and all."
She let her sentence trail off, suddenly unsure. With how much Calliope had learned from Violet about maintaining a healthy distance in the event of a communicable disease she would have been able to speak on the subject at length. Instead, she winced, waiting for Cell's reaction.
Where he was initially confused, he then frowned slightly, though without hostility. Cell's eyes almost imperceptibly darted between holding her gaze down to her lips and then up again, as if weighing the option of going in for a kiss anyway.
After a long few seconds Cell did back off, breathing the smallest of sighs through his nose. He did seem to regain his usual composure, and his normal smirk fit back into place on his face. "Well, I suppose you'll just have to take a rain check then."
Calliope still hadn't lowered the clipboard, but her eyebrows did arch in skepticism. Did Cell just respect her boundaries? Again? The thought momentarily rattled louder in her mind than the questions about the Solstice lab. Mentally she was still thrown off balance, but that took the cake.
"... I'm going to try and see what happened. People turning into monsters and whatnot." She spoke stiffly, wishing to get away from this particular situation. Calliope slipped sideways, then backward as she spoke, all too aware of how incredibly awkward she sounded. "The whole thing is very concerning. I am concerned."
"I bet you are." Cell said smoothly with a certain amount of amusement, watching her back out the door.
It wasn't until she was back in the main isolation area that she could attempt to breathe easily again. Calliope tossed the clipboard onto a nearby table, intent on remembering to recheck Cell's vitals at some point later. She attempted to order her thoughts, a neat list of things that needed to be done. First, contact the appropriate authorities. Second, try to get through the information on hand to see what exactly this was.
She still couldn't help wondering what the hell Cell was doing trying to kiss her again. Was he trying to mess with her? This would certainly be one of the worst time to try that, all things considered.
Then again, the kiss that morning hadn't be entirely unpleasant. Unexpected, yes. Invading of her personal space, absolutely. But not altogether unpleasant. Calliope decided to ignore that unwelcome train of thought.
Seeing that the decontamination for her clothes and personal effects, as well as Cell's armor, had run its course Calliope retrieved the laptop and documents from the Solstice lab. She settled at the central table that occupied the room, opened the laptop, and was slightly annoyed to see the computer booting up to the log in screen. Violet's profile was present in the center, cursor blinking, waiting for a password. While there was still a two-inch stack of papers sat next to her that needed to be reviewed, the computer locking her out presented a greater roadblock.
For a long moment, she stared at the computer, trying to think what Violet might think of significant enough to use as a password. Eventually, with a dubious thought that her adoptive aunt wouldn't be so stupid as to keep a stupidly simple passphrase to keep the computer safe, she typed in the first thing that came to mind.
"Seriously, Violet?" Calliope couldn't suppress the indignant tone in her voice as the computer happily chimed into the desktop proper to load the available programs. She could recall many emails that Jay had sent out to the entirety of her lab about the importance of the security protocols on all their computers. Having strong passwords was always top of the list.
Of all the things Jay had urged people not to do, using something as simple as 'password123' was the most emphasized.
"Are you running into trouble with the computer?" When Cell spoke up Calliope jumped with a start of surprise. He had moved from the patient room to the wall across from her, arms crossed and leaned back in a relaxed pose, just watching her.
"Surprisingly, no." Calliope looked back to the computer and frowned at the screen. All the files she had been looking at earlier in the evening, including the wild rant Violet had typed out to herself, were closed when the computer restarted. "Well, not as much as I would think. I just have to find the files I was trying to look at earlier."
Calliope waited for the computer to finish loading, as well as connecting to the network. She was doubtful that the regular Solstice network it was on before was still available- given that the building was currently in a state of ruin. It was lucky that the quarantine unit had a Minnows-specific network that was able to connect to satellites on the chance that it needed to be deployed in remote locations where communication was otherwise limited.
While she waited, glaring at the laptop and the small crack on the corner of the screen where it impacted someone's head earlier that evening, as if it could speed up the process, Calliope almost didn't notice Cell moving smoothly to sit across from her.
"Eat this." Cell said shortly, his hand across the table to offer a single greenish bean on his palm.
Calliope looked from his hand, to Cell, and then shook her head. "Um, no thank you. I'm fine-"
"No, you're not fine." Before she could finish Cell had cut her off with a sudden cold snap and all-too somber expression. "You look like you've been beaten up and dragged through Hell. Eat the damned bean."
Startled as much by his words as well as the force he said them with, offering hand extended to invade her space again, Calliope instinctively leaned back. "Unless that bean has the caffeine equivalent to a cup of coffee I'm no-" before she could finish her sentence she found herself cut short again, this time by an imperceptibly two-finger jab right into the back of her throat.
Slapping at the space before her where Cell had already retreated from, Calliope then leaned forward in a coughing fit as she tried to swallow in panic. It took a couple of minutes to calm herself down after gulping down breaths, once she was sure that her airway wasn't blocked, and that she hadn't managed to aspirate the bean instead of swallowing it properly.
"Choking...! Hazard...!" She managed to wheeze out harshly, her head still bowed as she recovered. Easing herself back up, she found the restraint to say, rather than shout, "Don't do that again."
Cell returned her gaze and spoke calmly, "Don't go off and try to get yourself killed again."
"For the last time, I didn't try to get myself kill!" Calliope retorted, her voice rising as she rose her head and abruptly stood to glare at Cell's annoyingly smug face. Unfortunately, she found she now had abundant energy to be upset again. Where before she had been sore, tired, essentially running on fumes and spite for everything she had to put up with lately, now she felt oddly refreshed. After the night's events and having settled into quarantine she had had little fight left in her. It was a struggle to remember what she promised herself earlier that day; she was not going to lose her cool. Especially with the way Cell was looking at her- like he was expecting her to break off in a vicious tirade about how inappropriate it was to stick fingers into other peoples' mouths, especially being in quarantine.
She settled for muttering angrily to herself.
"Are you feeling better?" Cell asked, recrossing his arms and relaxing back a degree on the stool he had claimed.
"I'm fine." Her frown firmly in place, Calliope sat back down on her stool. She did feel better but bitterly refused to openly admit it. The persistent headache that had chased her through the day had eased, and the various bruises she had picked up that night didn't ache.
A familiar chiming sound drew her eyes to the laptop. She blinked in surprise. The laptop had managed to connect to the network on its own and now chimed a familiar tune. Minnows labs tended to use similar software across labs; the alert that had popped up on the screen was the labs' video call software.
INCOMING CALL
MINNOWS-EQUINOX-LAB (SECURE)
RESEARCH 01A
DR.
Calliope felt her face fall, her hands froze over the keys of the laptop where she had been intending to try and search for the files she had intended to look over. The chime continued to ring from the computer, too loud in the otherwise quiet quarantine unit.
"Are you going to answer that?" Cell said from across the table where he watched her curiously. Seeing her face he tilted his head with a quirked eyebrow. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Calliope answered quickly, averting her eyes back to the laptop. She pressed away the shock of seeing that particular name on the screen. She would have even preferred to speak to her grandfather-revealed-father than him.
But if he was calling, now of all times, then the odds were good that he could give some insight into what had happened in the Solstice labs. Calliope took a deep breath to steady her nerves and reminded herself that she had faced scarier things in the past few hours. She hit the button to accept the video call, determined to be as cool and professional as she could manage. The light next to the camera lit up to show it was active, and the screen blinked up with the accepted video call.
There he was- still adorable with his round-lens glasses and large nervous doe eyes and soft-featured face. His espresso brown hair was still short, cleanly combed to the side. He had anxious tendencies that always had his dark eyes flitting nervously around the room. It looked like he was sat in an unremarkable office- gray walls behind him, an unmarked white mug near at hand.
Calliope had always thought he was balanced cute-handsome, in a way. She hated herself for thinking that now.
When his eyes settled on her, they widened with surprise. "Calliope?"
"Ian." She greeted coolly, knowing full well that she was not who he was expecting to see on the call. He would be trying to reach Violet, most likely.
She did her best to avoid catching Cell's eyes, but from her periphery could tell he was still watching her. Where she'd normally expect him to look amused, entertained by the strain of the situation, he instead looked concerned and curious. With a slight frown, his head still tilted, listening to everything, of course.
"I- Uh. Wait. No. Um." Ian stammered, his eyes flitted down and around his screen as if to confirm that he had been calling the right person. He then winced and gave an anxious smile, "This is... Um... Unexpected. Its good to see you...?" Calliope didn't reply and after a moment of simply watching Ian, he went on as if seizing the meat of the conversation, skipping any further attempt at small talk. There was a tremble to his voice as he asked, "Hey, um, is Doctor Winters there?"
Calliope watched him for a moment more before giving a measured response, "No, Doctor Winters is dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes." She maintained her gaze on the camera, wanting to enhance the effect that she was watching Ian. It was much easier to be short with him than she thought it would be.
"You aren't at..." Ian paused, his eyes flashing away from the camera, nervous as if he was trying to pick his words carefully. "You... Weren't at her lab recently, were you?"
"Oh, you mean the new Solstice lab?" Calliope asked mildly, watching Ian stiffen at the question. Of course, he had to know something. "I was."
They had been school mates at university. The student advisers felt that given their similar age, they would be able to support each other, something about how it was healthy to socialize with people of similar ages. Calliope had introduced him to Violet, and in time he was hired as a researcher at her old lab.
She somewhat regretted not keeping up with him over the last year. But not much. The distance made it easier to feel less awkward now, she found.
For a long moment, Ian was still, silent, appearing to weigh his response again. This was an odd reaction, everything considered. Finally, he spoke up while trying to affect a calm, casual tone, "Okay. What exactly happened? With Violet, I mean."
"Well, earlier this evening she told me she was dying," Calliope started, matching Ian's voice. She went on quickly, "When I arrived she and her staff were acted suspiciously, one tried to accost me, and about half a dozen inflicted gunshot wounds to their head. I pistol-whipped someone, and they chased me around the facility. Violet tried to strangle me and, well, I won't bore you with the details. But she is dead."
As she explained Ian's eyes steadily grew wider, while across the table Cell continued watching her with an increasing look of what might have been concern.
"Okay. Um. Wow." Ian quietly spoke as if to himself, now looking away from the camera. He gathered himself again before saying, "Her staff was also acting violently?"
"Mhm. Now I assume that she went off and started a cult for some reason. You know how Violet was. The aggression and irrational behavior could be explained by drugs like amphetamines, or maybe bath salts. Combine drug use and a cult mindset and... Well, its almost scary to think about." When she said this thoughtfully, Ian looked relieved that he had an out. His mouth opened as if to speak but she cut him off before he had the chance to support the false narrative, "Of course, that doesn't account for the slowed speech, epiphora, discolored screla or the fact that she turned into what would best be described as a monster."
Ian's face turned into a carefully maintained blank expression, his lips pressing together to form a tight line. This time when his eyes darted away from the screen, it looked like he was writing down something quite quickly. For some reason she got the impression that as much anxiety as her story gave him, there was also a sense of excitement.
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Calliope asked coldly and Ian snapped his attention back to the camera as if remembering that they were in the middle of a conversation.
"I can't really talk about it, confidentiality, you understand." Ian said this quickly, quietly, in an attempt to dismiss her question. He was distracted though, his attention going back to off the screen to continue writing what she assumed was notes. he spoke softly to himself, almost too low to catch. "... It shouldn't have resulted in aggressive behavior... Progressed rather rapidly..."
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Her voice pitched with frustration that she had grown too familiar with as the week had progressed.
Before Ian had the chance to avoid the question on his own, he gave a jump as if startled, staring wide-eyed at the screen. It was only then that she realized Cell had moved from where he was originally watching her. He did it so quickly she hadn't noticed him just behind her, leaning against the table with hands on either side of her, leaned down far enough that his face was nearly level with hers to glare into the camera.
Before either Calliope or Ian had the chance to say anything, Cell spoke with a deathly cold edge that threw a shiver down her spine, "I have an idea. How about you start telling us everything we'd like to know about this?"
Calliope closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath, then let out a gentle sigh. She tried to keep her mind focused on what was turning into a remote interrogation she found herself instigating. It took some effort, avoiding how uncomfortably warm the air was with Cell so close to her, wrapping her in his presence.
"Right, Ian, this is Cell, yes the same one from TV who was eating people." For some reason she couldn't quite understand, Calliope felt that this might go easier if she got introductions out of the way. She gestured at each respective party, as prim as she could manage. "Cell, this is Doctor Ian Fall, who, last I checked, actually worked quite closely with Doctor Winters." She didn't care to volunteer any further information.
"Well, that is interesting." Cell continued in a mock of casual conversation, that still held a hint of threat. "So, Ian, what do you know?"
Ian was grimacing and emitting a low groan of unease. He again looked off-camera and looked like he wanted to slip down his chair to hide from Cell.
"I am not comfortable with this line of questioning." Ian said firmly, quietly.
"Oh, join the fucking club." Where normally Calliope would be a bit more empathetic to him, after what she had been through that night alone, she couldn't seem to find it in herself.
On the laptop, Ian stared at his screen. He leaned forward to ask in a whisper, "... Why is he naked?"
"Because of reasons." Calliope forced her eyes closed and tried to ignore the nearly-bare elephant in the room. She continued, reminded with every word how tired she was, "Ian, we're in quarantine. I can pretty much guarantee we've been exposed to whatever it is your avoiding talking about. What are you going to do about this?" She decided to leave out the part where Cell had completely disregarded her advice on avoiding contact with Violet and her staff.
She hoped the fact that their situation would drive Ian to action. He may have been young, barely older than herself, but he had always been a good person. This wasn't something he could just sweep under the rug, especially not with Cell involved. Especially not with her involved, all things considered, she hoped.
"I-Wh- Why is he in quarantine with you?!" Ian seemed to ignore the rest of her statement, her question, the very call to action that should be his focus, and he gestured in question as to Cell's presence there. "How do you even know each other?!"
"Ian." Cell cut into the conversation, and for not the first time in the evening, Calliope was thankful that he was there. "You're getting off-topic."
"Okay, okay. Geeze, I really shouldn't even be talking about this..." On the screen, Ian had jumped at the not-so-gentle reminder. But that seemed to light the fire under him to get on task. "Are you two still at the Solstice lab?"
"We are." Calliope nodded.
"What's left of it, anyway." Behind her Cell scoffed, which drew a curious look from Ian.
"We're in an offsite capsule quarantine unit." She followed up, to catch the question she could see in Ian's eye about where exactly they were quarantining.
"Okay...Okay... I can get a team out there to collect you and bring you back here, might take a bit of time to arrange that." Again distracting himself, Ian this time began typing furiously at the computer he was using, likely in another window. He added as if an afterthought, "We've been seeing an average incubation period between 72 and 96 hours, so if you are infected, you shouldn't show symptoms by the time we get to you. We can run further tests to see if either of you test positive."
The fact that Ian sounded well familiar with what infected Violet grated on Calliope's nerves.
"And if we are infected?" Cutting in, Cell had resumed his cold questions. It felt strange to have his support on this, or any, matter.
"We have some treatments available." Ian squeaked out without thinking, then looked abashed to have given such information away. He continued, as if against his better judgment, "Unless its mutated it shouldn't be airborne. We've seen transmission linked to bodily fluids, though."
Something about the conversation still didn't sit well with Calliope. By all means, she should have felt better; Ian was going to be on task, he wouldn't leave them potentially infected and alone. She would have thought with their previous friendship, their mutual relationship with Violet, that he would be more forthcoming.
"Good." Cell spoke again, his tone not letting up while maintaining an icy glare into the camera.
"You guys just... Just sit tight... We'll have people out to get you in no more than 24 hours."
Behind her Cell grunted acknowledgment before he finally moved away, as if he had grown bored by the conversation and scaring Ian. He moved back over to the other side of the table at a lazy pace before taking a seat. He resumed watching Calliope.
It sounded like the call was just about done. Ian was speaking softly, half to himself, half to her about the seriousness of maintaining their quarantine. That Solstice was far enough away from any people that no one else should be in danger of exposure. That this pathogen he had yet to put a name to was otherwise contained.
"You are going to be in contact with local health authorities, right?" Calliope asked suddenly. On the screen, Ian gave a pause and looked at her.
Ian winced at this question. His eyes darted away from the screen, and his voice went quiet, "We're going to take care of it. Just stay put."
Without so much as a proper goodbye, Ian dropped the call, leaving Calliope to stare at the screen with a pit in her stomach.