23. Claire
Claire had learned to feel comfortable working in high bio secured laboratories as she had come to spend a lot of time in them. The pre entering protocol was tedious, but it usually became much more tolerable when you had someone to converse through it.
"Let's hope that Wallace won't be pestering Leon while we are out of there." Hiwamura giggled, putting on the suit.
"Leon can handle it, and honestly, Wallace will be too distracted with his gaming to care…"
"Who knows. Grant might consider Leon a rival now…"
"I doubt that a fake husband can be considered a rival."
"A handsome one, yes. You never know when real love can bloom."
"Are you still with that?" Claire sighed, "Change of topic. Did you do the blood analysis?"
"I did. I actually have the report here…"
"I'll see it through after we finish done here, but how about a quick note now?"
"Well, T-Phobos remains stable in your genome…."
"I guess that's good, and the second virion?"
"Isolated it. It's in a low concentration in blood…"
"Good, it isn't blood-borne then…" Claire could not describe the relief of knowing that the virus was not blood-borne.
"Nope. It seems to be localized…"
"Makes me less contagious at least; the question now is...where?"
"I have my guesses…"
"Oh?"
"I think...it is in your bone marrow. You're showing symptoms that could compare to Evans syndrome, Claire..."
"Autoimmune disease?" Claire said, looking at the Asian thoughtful,, "Well, that could be worse…"
"I might be wrong, but I want a marrow sample to be safe…"
"You can take it after we are done with this…" Claire nodded. The faster they did things, the better.
"I already told Christ, just to warn you…"
"Oh, there's an upgrade in his overprotectiveness level there…" Claire chuckled, "It's okay. He needs to know. Chris is already fed up with me keeping secrets from him."
"He told me to tell Leon, too…"
"Of course, he would. Leon is my big-brother number 2. He's supposed to play Chris's role when he's not around."
The two women entered the sterile room, and each one began to work in their respective areas of work.
Rebecca had sent two vials of the virus that Leon and Helena had recovered in Mexico. Claire started working on the extraction of genetic material while Saya worked in microscopy to determine its structure.
"It's a helical virus…?"
"Yeah, that's what Rebecca put in her report…"
"Double capsid, alpha form, well at a simple look, I'd say structurally speaking it looks like ebolavirus…."
"Yeah, Rebecca's team tried to identify it with Ebola virus primers, but they had no amplification. We will try a different approach."
"Okay…huh? Don't look, but it seems we have company…"
Claire turned to Saya with a questioning look. She saw the Asian woman tilted her head, pointing at the window. Claire turned her head, and her eyes instantly locked with Leon's green ones. She hadn't even realized that he and Helena were looking at them through the security glass.
" Want a virology lesson?" she silently mouthed at him.
Claire saw Leon snort and shake his head.
"I pass." he silently mouthed back.
Claire made a resignation gesture and smiled at him. She already knew his response, but she still has asked.
"Your loss…" she smiled.
Claire turned back to her samples and kept working with an unconscious smile. It took her about fifteen minutes to finish the extraction protocol and, preparing the amplification samples that she put into the equipment and started the program. Saya had already put the virus samples into the freezer when Claire had turned to the Asian doctor.
"Well, all that's left is wait," Claire said as she began cleaning her workplace.
"I'll head out first to prepare everything for the marrow biopsy."
"Okay…"
Claire wasn't a fan of needles and procedures such as biopsies, but she wouldn't complain if they had to be done. After taking the proper protocol to "sterilize" herself before leaving the lab, Claire entered the medical room and laid on her stomach as the doctor began the procedure. The test wasn't a nice experience; local anesthesia would numb her muscles, but not her bone, so when the needle made its way to take the sample of marrow, she still felt the piercing pain.
"I already gave you Tranexamic acid to prevent excessive bleeding, but you need to lay on your back for a bit…"
Claire sighed, looking at the ceiling for a few minutes, while the pain at the base of her back began to feel more intense as the anesthesia started to pass. It didn't help that her head had started to hurt.
"Yes, I think it has stopped bleeding," Saya said, looking at the bandage. "Now, get up slowly...that's it. It wasn't that bad, was it?"
Claire looked at the Asian woman with slight irritation as she stood up with her help. The pain of the procedure was still there, but Claire managed to endure it enough to be able to walk.
Both women left the room, Saya was walking closely in case that Claire needed some support, but the young Redfield showed no sign of needing it. Claire had taken the chart with the results of the tests on her own blood and began to flip through its contents.
"Is this the full sequence?"
"Yes, I guessed you'll want to have it printed."
"Huh…" Claire said, checking the sequence of letters on the diagram " Interesting…"
"What ?"
"This starter sequence over here...it's the one that codes for the main virulent protein of the T-Phobos."
"So it is a retrovirus?"
"Not necessarily...but considering the location of the gene, there is a high chance...wait, what's this?"
Claire pointed at a position close to the middle of the sequence. There were duplicate letters on the same portion of the line. It wasn't uncommon that some of the bases would get repeated, but there was something off in how the bases were paired.
"Uh? Those bases? What with them?"
"I don't know...maybe it's nothing. I'll look through it later…" Claire sighed, "Oh, hey…You two are still there? The office is much comfier, you know?"
"We were waiting for you," Leon said, looking at her, and she only smiled at him weakly.
"Oh...the sample is amplifying now. It'd take about 3 h to end; then we'll need to do sequencing, so maybe you'll prefer to go somewhere more livable."
"The office sounds about right." Hiwamura agreed, "Who knows, maybe Wallace will let you play with him. I think his new game can do multiplayer..."
" I pass…." Claire said, shaking her head, "I have a migraine. I don't think I can stand the flashy screens and all the shooting. You two could try out, though…"
"Are you okay?" Helena asked, concerned.
"Yeah, too much "thinking" in one go." Claire chuckled, "I'll have some pain killers, and that should do."
"How about a nap?" Hiwamura suggested.
"Maybe that, too. I had forgotten how draining this was…."
"I told you it was too soon for you to start working and so did Chris…"
There it was; the overprotectiveness that was so much like Chris's.
"I know. It's nothing. I just need to catch up with the rhythm. Don't worry…"
"Ok, so...why don't you go to your office and I'll get you those pills?" HIwamura suggested, "Sleep it off…"
"Yeah, I think I'll do that. I'll be in Genetics if you two need me, "
Claire gave the two agents a weary smile and headed to her small office in the genetic lab. The office was a small room with a desk and a sofa where Claire used to sit and read or take naps when the work left her excessively tired. The woman dropped down on the seat and closed her eyes.
A migraine and a bone marrow biopsy were a bad mix, Claire thought bitterly. Her mind began to wander but as much as she tried, sleep did not seem to reach her. Resigned to the fact that napping was going to be impossible, Claire took the data table that Saya had given her and began to study the sequence.
"That doesn't look like napping…"
Claire looked up from her papers with a face that looked like a child who'd just been discovered making a prank.
Leon was standing in front of the door with his arms crossed and a raised eyebrow.
"Leon! Geez...you scared me." Claire sighed, "And in my defense...I did try to sleep, but I just...couldn't, and you should knock, you know?"
" I expected you to be asleep. I didn't want to wake you."
"As usual, such a gentleman..." Claire said, rolling her eyes.
"Since you're awake, you might want to take this…" Leon said, handing Claire some pills.
"Oh, thanks…"
Claire took the pills and swallowed them with a gulp of water. The medicine would take a while to take effect, and until then, Claire would have to endure the pain for a while longer.
The woman made space on the sofa and patted the free space at her side, inviting the blonde to sit down.
"I'm not a zombie yet. I don't bite…"
"That's not funny at all, Claire…"
"You need to stop hanging out with Chris…" she snorted "your humor is starting to be as good as his…"
Leon sat down next to her while Claire continued to watch the data on the screen of her laptop. The sequence identity analysis was running smoothly, but it still needed a little more time before the results were ready.
"What's that?" Leon asked.
" Oh, ready for that biology class I promised you? I'm just kidding. This is a software we designed; the algorithm allows us to compare multiple fragments of the viral genome against genomes in the database. So even if the virus is a Frankenstein, we can get an idea of which agent was used as a template…"
"You sure have your tricks, Redfield."
"It comes in handy when 90% of the viruses you analyze are genetically engineered…"
"So...this is the Mexican sample?"
"No, this is...something else…" Claire sighed, "This is the virus isolated from me…."
That certainly caught Leon's attention.
"From you?"
"Yeah, Saya was kind enough to do the sample treatment for me…all I need to do now is to analyze the data..."
"And...what exactly are we looking at?"
"Well, this is the genetic material from the virus. You can get a lot of information from it; for example, this sign here indicates the strand's sens. This one is a plus-strand, which means that the viral RNA sequence can get directly translated into the desired viral proteins. Therefore, the viral RNA genome can be considered viral mRNA and can be immediately translated by the host cell making the infection happen at a much faster rate since it can skip a metabolic process. Now, this section, here, codes for a specific enzyme named RTase and only some specific types of virus have it. I know this sequence well, it belongs to the T-Phobos. RTases are present in retroviruses. Retroviruses are viruses that have the particularity of being able to incorporate segments of their genome into the host's causing abnormalities in cell growth that often result in cancerous tumors. The T-Phobos was designed on a retroviral template incorporating genetic fragments from the T-virus and the T-veronica."
"You seem to know a lot about the T-Phobos."
"Let's say I have a particular love for the T-Phobos." she replied sarcastically, "Considering it literally changed my life in more ways than I'd like…"
"I might have seen a report or two, but I was a little too busy with other things to pay much attention to it…"
"You probably saw my reports…" Claire giggled," I made a full study for the government years after the incident. To help to develop the antiviral. The T-Phobos is an interesting virion since, compared to its far cousins, it isn't exactly infectious. It's a retrovirus that after entering the cell, remains in the cytoplasm in a latent state. The virus has specific receptors for norepinephrine, cortisol, and epinephrine. Those are hormones associated with fear and stress. When the concentration of these hormones reaches a certain peak, the virulence gets unleashed. That's when the symptoms appear…"
"So that's how it worked? You freak out, your levels of hormone blow up, and bingo, you are a monster?"
"Yeah. In other words, it's not that you can't feel fear, but you need to feel enough to reach the peak. Now, in my case. It seems that at some point in my life, I developed a cute little mutation in a certain gene named corticosteroid-binding globulin, which regulates plasma cortisol levels and bioavailability; as a result, my levels of cortisol are usually low. Eventually, due to environmental factors that I don't know, the virus mutated inside my cells and eventually completed its cycle, integrating its DNA into mine. Luckily for me, recombination was mostly benign."
"Mostly?"
"Yeah, what are some depressive tendencies compared to being a mutant monster, right?"Claire shrugged.
"And you think this new virus is related to the T-Phobos?"
"Yeah, unfortunately, I only recognize this segment, so it's hard to tell anything else. Once the blast sequence is done, I might figure something..."
Leon suddenly chuckled.
"What? What's so funny?" Claire asked, looking at him puzzled.
"When I met you on the streets of Racoon city, I'd never have imagined that that girl throwing knives, sarcastic comments, and kicking zombies' asses would turn out to be such scientists. There I thought she was just an average college girl..."
"Hey!" Claire laughed " but you know...in a way, you were the one who encouraged me into taking virology."
"Me?"
"Remember that time in Harvardville?" Claire said, leaning back, "You told me in your odd way of comforting me, that I had chosen a different path from you and Chris, but I still fought for the same ideal. Well, I think that conversation was my decisive point to choose virology, and here I am, profiling unknown viruses so that people like you and Chris can kick some B.O.W.'s ass…"
"That's much appreciated, Claire."
Claire smiled. She settled the laptop on the desk and sighed; the analysis would take at least 12h to be done. She wouldn't get any data until tomorrow.
"Tired?"
"Not exactly. Are you?"
"Why would I?"
"Well, babysitting me is quite boring…" Claire laughed, "I pity you and Helena."
"Last time I checked, Helena was enjoying herself kicking your computer engineer's ass in his game." Leon replied, shaking his head, "And I have good company in exchange, so no...babysitting you is actually nice."
"Really?" Claire frowned skeptically, "You prefer sitting here chatting with me than playing hero out there?"
"Yeah, I actually do. Maybe I enjoy being your husband, too."
"Oh, no. What you enjoy is teasing me in front of everyone else…"
"Well, it's not easy to tease a Redfield…"
Claire laughed. The woman couldn't deny that despite feeling annoyed about being treated like a fragile doll in distress, she enjoyed Leon's company. It was nice to have somebody to fool around with and spend silly afternoons at home.
"Now try to take that nap..." Leon said sternly.
"I'll try…" Claire chuckled, but it didn't take long for the drugs to take effect, and the woman was quickly snoozing off. Her head dropped on Leon's shoulder, but instead of pushing her away, Leon pulled her closer and let her have the sleep she deserved.