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46. Claire

It took some persuasion - and Leon's merciful help- to get Chris to agree to leave the lab and let them work quietly. Claire loved Chris to the end of the world, but her brother could be a real hindrance when he got anxious, and she wanted some time to work and absorb the information she had. Perhaps, Leon had noticed her face of dismay, and the agent had been quick to get Chris's attention and persuade him to grab a cup of coffee while the ladies worked. She made a mental note to thank him later.

With Chris out of the way, Claire could work quietly alongside Saya and Rebecca. Even though both women were staring at her gravely, their presence was not as intimidating as her brother's.

"I'm-a-paranoid-overprotective-brother is out of the way," Saya said, sitting on one of the benches and crossing her legs, " We can talk properly now. Are you sure these results are right?"

"Yes," Claire answered. resting her chin on her hand. "Believe me, never in my life have I wished that the samples had gotten contaminated, but I think I have enough experience not to make a mistake as absurd as contaminating duplicates and different samples."

It wasn't rare that cross-contamination between samples happened. However, Claire was pretty sure she'd been careful, and besides, the pattern of results left clear that it was beyond mere contamination. They had been different tissues, treated differently and individually, and the negative controls had come up clean.

"Well, you know your deed, so I highly doubt you would be careless enough to contaminate those samples with your DNA" Saya shrugged.

"Right…" Claire shrugged, leaning back in her seat.

"But ...I don't understand…" Rebecca said, looking at the screen before turning to Claire, "Wouldn't your virus and the virus that originated those things be the same one?"

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed; in normal circumstances, that would have been most likely the case, but after working with an endless number of bioengineered viruses, Claire knew that she could not expect normal behavior when it came to these viruses.

"Not necessarily. I mean, not if the virus mutated inside of me. We have two different genotypes isolated from our guy. One of them is out of our database, and the other..." Claire replied, scrolling through the screen. She was looking for the set of letters she had grown so familiar with; it was a short sequence of about 50 bases, but that was all she needed to recognize it, " look this sequence right here. I've seen it enough times to recognize it even without the software."

"That's a T-Phobos line, isn't it?" Rebecca said, noticing the pattern, "I remember seeing it in your report."

"Yeah, this "cap" here is the initiation sequence for the T-Phobos replication, but these right here are mine. I mean, you only find this genotype in my genome originated by reverse transcription; but the rest of it matches with the original sequence of the virus."

"So it is some kind of hybrid between your DNA and the virus. Well, I've heard of viruses introducing genes into their hosts, but this might be the first time I heard of it happening the other way around." Rebecca said with wide eyes.

"Well, there is always a first time for everything, and in this business, nothing surprises me anymore."

"Yeah, that and I already knew I was a freak…" Claire shrugged.

"So just to state the facts…" Saya said, tapping the table with her finger, "We have a new strain of virus: A and B. A is harmless unless it becomes infected with B, but now we have a new player in the game, which is C. Okay, this is becoming confusing."

"Let's leave it at Claire is a freak with a freaky virus that works completely different to how it should."

"I must object to that affirmation…" Saya said, "It's too lax."

"Fine, you can paint it prettier for the final report, but for now, that's all we need to know. My virus works differently and apparently, hates its distant relative to the point of wanting to kill it off."

Saya shrugged but said nothing more. Rebecca tapped her lip in thought.

" But why was the creature carrying your strain? How did it get it?"

"I don't know… " Claire leaned back in her chair, "maybe Mobius was testing new stuff?"

" Well, that might be it, but how did they get the inoculum? I mean, if you're telling me that this strain comes from Claire, then how did they get it from her?" Rebecca asked.

Claire had to admit that Rebecca had a point. If the strain was directly related to her, the most obvious assumption would be that she was the source, but since she was safely here, where and how did it get infected with it?

"Up until now, we didn't have a full virus to compare my sample with; so, as far as I know, this mutated version could exist since I was captive, and we are just finding out because we have something to compare it to now."

"Fair enough." Saya nodded, "I've been monitoring Claire since we got her back, and we haven't seen major changes, which means the C-strain is more or less stable."

C- strain? Claire rolled her eyes at the name.

"Okay, so this strain behaves as a virophage that dismantles the other virus …" Rebecca concluded, " that means you technically killed that thing."

"Not only killed but suppressed the mutation causing the phenotype to fall apart. Maybe that's why Claire is phenotypically stable. Maybe it is some sort of endotoxin that suppresses the mutation by getting rid of mutated cells. "

"Yahoo for me. My mutation prevents me from turning into a horrendous creature," Claire sighed, rolling her eyes, "We can think of details later. For now, we should try to see if our theory is right."

"Well, we could induce some cells to an infection, and then give them a third infection using yours," Rebecca suggested, " if we use the live feed monitoring, we can see what happens, and then we propose mechanisms. "

"Wow, it is so nice to have a third brain tuned in." Saya laughed, "You do that, Dr. Chambers. I'll keep monitoring the histology from our guy to see if it continues changing."

"Okay, I guess I will continue looking at these genes to see if I can figure out anything from it."

The women turned to their tasks and began working diligently. Rebecca needed some minutes to grow used to her surroundings, but once she had gone through that, the young doctor was working like she'd been there her whole life. Rebecca was a valuable addition to her team, and Claire was grateful that she had decided to join them.

Work...work...work...

Her younger self was leaning against her desk with her arms crossed. Her blue eyes were looking at her teasingly, and her lips curved in a playful smile. Claire looked around. Both Rebecca and Saya were busy and paying her no attention.

I told you we weren't that different from them.

Claire raised her eyebrow and continued typing while the girl paced around her desk with a cryptic smile. The scene gave her an uneasy sense of dejá Vu.

They are always hungry and like a Pygmy Shrew, always eating and eating.

The Pygmy shrew was the smallest mammal in North America. It was also the animal with the highest metabolic rate in nature, which translated into a high and constant requirement of food to keep it alive. Just like the pygmy shrew, the new B.O.W.s were constantly eating. They were always hungry, they needed to eat, or they would die.

"They need to eat to keep up with their metabolism. "

Very good, just a little bit further…

Unlike other B.O.W.s she's had the misfortune to meet, they were voracious, like a desperate animal who hadn't eaten in ages. Zombies from the T-virus would feed out of impulse, but their consumption would be limited to one or two victims. The rest of the victims would be pleasure killing, and not necessity kills. It was a preservation mechanism to pass off the virus. However, the new B.O.W.s - she'd need to give them a name since she was starting to get tired of calling them the new ones - Would devour anything that crossed their path, living or dead.

No, not everything. A tiny voice inside Claire's head whispered.

There had been bodies left untouched during the attack on the mall; people that had been killed, mutilated, but not eaten; the same happened in the hospital in Wales. They were selective with their prey. They needed to eat, but not just anything.

"They need to eat infected tissue." Claire realized "they need infected tissue to regenerate…"

Her young doppelgänger clapped, making noise only to her ears. The realization rang deep in her thoughts. Was their regeneration tied to consumption? If that was the case, what happened if they didn't? How had she regenerated?

"What?" Rebecca asked, turning to look at her.

"The virus causes a mutation that leads to an exacerbated compensatory hyperplasia (1), among other things. That increases the BOW's regenerative capacity. "

"Well, That would explain the regeneration mechanism in a way," Saya nodded, tapping her chin, "But what was that about infected tissue?"

"The infected cells use other infected cells as source materials for metabolism." Claire replied, "That's why they resort to cannibalism to keep up with the nutrients requirements. "

"So they eat each other to heal? Talk about weird viruses." Saya said, shaking her head, " what happens if they don't eat?"

"I guess that, like the pygmy shrew, if it doesn't eat, it will die.'"

"The pygmy what?"

"It's the smallest mammal in the world; it has an incredibly active metabolism, so it must eat every 15 to 30 minutes; otherwise, its organs will begin to collapse."

"So… Do you think that it'd die if it doesn't eat properly? But wait, if it eats infected cells. Why doesn't it eat itself?"

Why won't people use their muscles as food then?

"It won't use healthy cells, but it could use the infected ones. However, I think it won't resort to it unless it is famished. The virus would try to preserve its host by pushing him to feel the need to feed on other creatures and maybe using biological markers so that it won't attack its own… "

"Or by mutation." Saya said, snapping her fingers, "This is a crazy idea, but maybe your virus works like that too."

"How come?" Rebecca asked.

"Claire's only symptoms so far had been autoimmune. What if it isn't autoimmune, but the virus is attacking its host due to starvation? If you're right, you would need to feed like them, but I don't see Claire eating zombies for dinner."

That observation instantly lit a light in Claire's mind. Her body had entered starvation mode. The virus had been forced to feed on her cells to survive, but since Claire's healthy cells also carried a viral gene due to the T-Phobos, the virus had attacked indiscriminately. When the Snatcher bit her the day before, it passed her viral particles. The virus in her body had used those foreign agents as the resource to regenerate her. If she was right, then maybe it happened the other way around, too, and the monster had gotten infected after biting her.

"I know that look…" Saya said, "what did you find out?"

" Two things, one easier to confirm than the other…"

"Okay, we are all ears."

"Sure, but I don't want to have to explain myself twice. Can you call Chris and Leon here?

"Sure, I'll be right back."

Claire watched Saya walk to the door and stood up. What she was going to do could be considered suicidal by some, but it would prove her hypothesis. Claire walked to one of the freezers and took out a tiny vial marked TV-0. It was a working sample of an inactive form of the T-virus- If her hypothesis were correct, she would be safe. If she were wrong, there wouldn't be a risk of her turning into a zombie. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door closing and approaching footsteps. Saya walked into the lab, followed by Leon and - unexpectedly - Jill. Claire let out an unconscious sigh of relief when she saw that Chris wasn't around.

"Oh, Jill! I was expecting Chris…" Claire grinned.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you. Chris was called back to HQ and left me here instead." Jill smiled. There was something about Jill that always made her feel comfortable, "but I'm sure you won't miss his presence for a while."

"It might be a good thing he isn't here…" Rebecca chuckled, "Chris and patience don't get along most of the time."

"That's an understatement…" Claire sighed. She'd had to deal with her brother's temper her whole life, so if someone knew about Chris's lack of patience, that was her.

Claire stretched her arms and looked around. Rebecca was chatting with Jill, Saya was working on her microscope, and Leon was standing at the door, looking bored, but his face seemed to brighten when their eyes locked. Leon approached her discreetly with his usual gallant pace. He leaned by her side and pretended to be looking at the screen with interest.

"Good acting skills. I almost thought you knew what you were looking at," Claire said teasingly.

"Oh, I know what I am looking at," he smirked, "There's no doubt those are letters."

Leon said that in such a deadpan way that Claire couldn't hide her smile.

"Yeah, those are some colorful letters," she sighed. "Thanks for taking Chris off my back."

"I just distracted him. The real person you should thank for his sudden absence is Adams ."

"Yeah, office calls. I'm not surprised."

"He wasn't too happy, but it seemed important."

"I bet, at least that will keep him busy."

Clair rubbed her temple and sighed.

"Are you okay? You are a little pale."

"I'm okay. I mean, pale seems to be my color these days… "

Leon's hand found his way to her hip and began tracing circles on it comfortingly. Claire could tell that if they had been alone, Leon would have pulled her into his arms, but with so many eyes around, the agent remained stiff and collected.

"We found something interesting." she heard Rebecca telling Jill, and both turned to look at the women.

Jill smiled at her while Rebecca tapped on her notepad excitedly.

"I assume it has to do with what you found in the database," Leon said, looking at Claire.

"Just when did you become so smart?" Claire traded, and Leon smirked.

"I've always been smart…"

"And sassy…" Claire chuckled.

"I learned from a certain woman…" Leon replied.

Claire let out a giggle. Of all the descriptions she could think of, sassy was not one of them; maybe sarcastic, ironic, or even feisty would fit her better. Her brief distraction was soon interrupted by the reminder of the current situation, and her smile waned.

If only there were other circumstances.

Would we be together in other circumstances, though?

Claire shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her thoughts were messy, and she would surely get a bad headache later.

"Are you alright? You don't look too well." Jill asked, concerned.

"Oh, no...I'm just fine." Claire shrugged, "Tired...maybe."

"Maybe you should take a break…" Leon suggested, but Claire shook her head.

She would take a break when she thought she could afford it. With the imminent threat of a potential biological disaster, they needed to work fast.

"I could take this as a break. I am not doing anything right now, am I? "

"That's not what I meant."

"I know…" Claire sighed. Like Chris, Leon was concerned about her health. Maybe Leon's worry was even graver than Chris's. Unlike her brother, the agent had held her bleeding form for hours, only to find out later that she had somehow miraculously healed, "It's fine. After I finish this, you can take me home.."

The suggestion seemed to put Leon at ease.

"Well, long story short. We found something that could potentially turn around the tides against these new BOW's. It's called a Virophage. A virus that manages to hijack and then basically dismantle another virus."

"Well, it sounds like a good thing, right?"

"Yeah, it's great," Rebecca said, "I mean this virus infects infected tissue and stops the virus from propagating and at the same time releases something, we are hypothesizing that it might be a toxin that "eats" away mutated tissue as well. "

"What does that mean?"

"It destroys all the mutated tissue." Hiwamura replied, "In our guy's case, the virus hijacked infected cells and stopped the virus from propagating and creating new mutated cell tissue. At the same time, it degrades all the preexisting mutated cells. It seems that mutated cells are the key to their regeneration abilities."

"So when they get infected with that thing...they can regenerate, and they become killable." Leon concluded, "I'm liking this virus…"

"Oh, believe me, there are other reasons for you to love this virus…" Hiwamura snorted.

Claire rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Trust Saya to make some unnecessary comments.

"Ignore her…"

"So, what is it? You said you found a full match."

"Yeah, I did…" Claire sighed. She pondered the ways she could drop the news but eventually, she figured out that the easiest way was to just let it out. "It's mine…"

"What?"

Leon was looking at her with his eyebrow raised, and Jill froze in her place. The woman's face moved from shock to thoughtful and then suddenly, something close to realization.

"The virophage. It's mine. It's my virus."

There was a brief pause. Everyone exchanged looks, concerned.

"I thought your virus was the same as…"

"The B.O.W.s?" Rebecca said, "So did I! It is an interesting phenomenon."

"Really?"

"I...was intending to reveal it in the next meeting since I wasn't entirely sure, but thanks to our guy, I guess I can, more or less, confirm it." Claire replied, tilting her head, "It seems that due to the mutation caused by my original infection with the t-virus and adaptive pressure, the virus in me mutated into a different strain."

"Oh, okay. Is that good or bad?"

"As far as I'm concerned, I'd say it is good, "Saya replied.

"Okay, so let me get this straight. That thing died because it got infected with a virus that came from Claire…" Leon said, crossing his arms.

"In general terms. Yes."

"How?"

"I know how…" Jill said, rubbing her chin, " I saw the security footage. That thing attacked Claire before dropping dead."

So it had been the bastard that tried to take a piece of her. Jill's revelation was just giving more base to her original supposition.

" Since Claire was doing fine, I thought I could just omit that information for Chris's sake. "

Claire could kiss Jill for that.

" Well, that sure clears a couple of things." Claire sighed," but I need to confirm something, so guys. Please, don't freak out with what I'm about to do. "

Claire took out one of the sterile surgical blades from one of the cabinets, and before anyone could think of reacting, she slashed her arm almost deep enough to reach the muscle.

" Holy cow! Rebecca said, horrified," What are you..."

Claire gave her a sign to wait. She saw Leon's horrified look and felt a little guilty. He was probably traumatized after a load of blood he had seen the day before. The clean gash on her arm was bleeding significantly, but she waited a couple of minutes enduring the stinging pain; nothing happened. There was no regeneration.

" I think that's enough, Claire… Leon began, "we should bandage that."

"No, wait."

Claire picked up the syringe she had prepared, and before anyone could ask or say anything, she stuck the needle in her arm.

"For heaven's sake. What did you…?" Saya groaned in horror, but before she could attempt to say or do something, the injury began to heal right in front of their face.

Rebecca let out a gasp of surprise when Claire cleaned her once injured arm and revealed her unscathed skin. All the present were speechless. Even Leon, who had already been witnesses of an even more miraculous recovery, was shocked. Claire, on the other hand, wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings. Her mind was busy trying to put all of her ideas in order.

It had worked; her assumptions had been right. It wasn't that she didn't have the regenerative ability, but rather, she had neglected to provide the sources for them to happen. The virus had been consuming her healthy and sick cells indiscriminately, and Claire's best guess was that the virus was unable to distinguish them due to her T-Phobos mutation. Without the fresh viral DNA, the virus had been killing off her cells, mimicking the pathology of an autoimmune disease.

"Claire!"

Saya's voice popped her bubble out of sudden, and Claire was pulled back to reality. She looked around her and smiled guiltily.

"I know you are probably making up all the connections in your mind, but honey, we could use some enlightenment ."

"Oh, sorry…" Claire said, throwing the bloodied gauze into the biohazard bin.

"What did you inject yourself with?" Rebecca said with brilliant eyes. It was obvious that, once she had overcome her initial surprise, the doctor's innate curiosity would pop up.

"T- virus…" Saya said, picking up the vial from the table and reading the label.

"What?" Leon and Jill cried.

"Well, inactive form…" Saya answered, showing the green label.

"I'm not that silly to use an active form…" Claire shrugged, " I just need to see if exposing myself to foreign viral DNA would unleash the response…"

"Using yourself as a test subject?" Saya asked with a frown.

"Jonas Salk tested his polio vaccine on himself…" Claire shrugged, "besides, this was quicker. It would take weeks to induce the phenotype on cell lines, and even then, it might not work. I'm a living sample, easy."

" Your crazy scientist tendencies are a headache for me as your doctor."Saya sighed, rubbing the back of her head.

" Before you start a lecture about that, take a blood sample…" Claire said, outstretching her arm.

"I'll do it!" Rebecca offered.

The group was silent while Rebecca finished bleeding Claire. It turned out to be a challenging task since it seemed that the regenerative skills were currently active, and she would heal almost as soon as the needle broke through her skin.

"This is incredible…" Rebecca said excitedly, "I've never seen anything like this."

"I don't want to be intrusive, but can you explain what just happened?" Jill asked, " Chris will freak out as soon as he hears about this, and I would like to have something to convince him that this was necessary."

Claire looked at them, feeling a little guilty again. With her sudden burst of excitement, she had momentarily forgotten about Jill and Leon. To Saya and Rebecca, it was easy to catch up with her line of thought, but for Leon and Jill, her actions were not that obvious.

"Sorry…." Claire apologized, "I forgot you guys weren't trained at this stuff. I'll try to put it simply, ehm. It seems my virus isn't the same one that we found in our guy; it has a mutation induced by my preconceived mutation due to the T-virus. It made the virus change its mechanism in some ways. Now, it seems that despite that, its working principle it's more or less the same. The virus induces a speeded-up metabolism that demands a lot of energy sources. It requires infected DNA material to 's why they cannibalize each other they need to eat other viruses to survive. I used the DNA in that T- virus sample to see if I was right, and as you can see, I was."

"So that's why you healed suddenly yesterday…" Leon replied. He was smart indeed, "The BOW that attacked you must have passed you infected DNA and your virus used it to heal you."

"Handsome and smart…" Claire said, winking at him, " maybe we can use that as a weapon against them?"

"That's exactly what I thought! I'll start working ASAP." Rebecca said, "I'll let you all know if I find anything."

"Great...thanks, Rebecca," Claire said. She stretched her arms and yawned.

" Leave the rest to us for today. I think Claire needs to rest."

The drive home was a quiet one. Claire had wanted to cook dinner, but Leon insisted on getting take out instead. He wanted Claire to rest, and he refused to believe her when she said she was fine. Leon had barely spoken a few words in the whole drive, and Claire couldn't help feeling uneasy. She feared the worst; with this new development, her humanity was dubious. Everyone knew she had been infected, but since Claire had been "normal" all this time, they had decided to ignore that fact. Now, however, it was clear that she had much more in common with those deadly things than anyone had thought.

I told you we were alike.

If Leon was taking the news like this, then she didn't want to know how Chris would react. Jill had assured her that she would give Chris a heads up on the situation before Claire had to speak to him face to face. That would give Chris time to absorb and calm down before they met, and hopefully, that would make things easier.

There were many things in her mind now, and she wished she had answers for all of them. However, a part of her felt that, unless she remembered what had happened in the last eight months, most of them would remain in the dark.

Why can't I remember? She thought angrily.

Is it that you can't or rather that you don't want to? Sometimes we block what we don't want to remember, and unless you accept it, it won't come out.

Accept what? Had those months been bad enough to make her want to suppress those memories? Even so, for the sake of everyone, she needed to remember.

Are you sure?

"Claire?"

"Huh? What?"

Claire had gotten so absorbed in her inner monologue that she hadn't noticed that Leon was talking to her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just…thoughtful. Sorry, I didn't mean to miss what you said. What was it again? "

"I asked if you still wanted to drop by Helena's?"

"Oh, yeah. It's in the same building anyway, and I want to see how she is doing. "

"She's fine. Perhaps a little annoyed by the fact that she's supposed to be stuck on a rest call for the next few days."

"No Christmas party then?"

"On the contrary. Hunnigan suggested that it was the perfect excuse for her to go this year."

"Is that party that bad?"

"No, well, not exactly. It's just a little cliché."

"Typical Christmas movie party?"

"Almost. You know, fancy clothing, fancy dining, senseless dancing. That sort of thing."

"Yeah, I can picture that. Don't you go home for the holidays?"

"I usually work on holidays, but I've visited a couple of times."

"What a grinch…" Claire chuckled.

"I assume you're the spirit of Christmas then?"

"I'm a bad Christmas spirit. I love Christmas; it's more about the memories I have of it than about the season itself."

Christmas was, overall, a consumer's holiday, but Claire had learned to love Christmas from her mother, whom her father - just like Leon had - used to tease her, calling her a Christmas spirit. She remembered how her mother would decorate the house and the clinic, how she would make Christmas cookies to give to anyone who came to the clinic with a sick animal, and how she used to call Chris and Claire her little Santa's helpers.

Chris had blocked the Christmas season almost immediately after their parents' death. It hadn't been on purpose. With him joining the army, he had become hard to page for the holidays, but Claire suspected that he was trying to avoid it as a sign of mourning, too. Claire had chosen another way. Instead, she had taken Christmas as a season to honor her parents' memory. She didn't throw big parties or anything, but she tried to celebrate it even if it was by herself in her office.

"I see. Do you usually celebrate with Chris?"

"Sometimes, but like you, Chris prefers to work on holidays. It's okay, though. That's his way of mourning."

"Mourning?"

Claire was drawing lines on the window glass.

"My parents…" Claire answered softly, "They died a couple of days after Christmas."

Leon was silent, but the surprise was obvious in his expression. As an agent, Leon had access to any information he wanted, and she had honestly thought that he would have looked through all her background before he jumped into the case. To her surprise, it seemed that she had been wrong, and Leon hadn't pried into her past tragedies as she had thought.

" I'm sorry," he said softly, "I didn't know."

"It's okay," Claire replied, looking through the window and then turning to give him a small smile.

A moderate snowfall had begun to fall over the city, and the white flakes and festive lights that hung from all the buildings gave her a warm and comforting feeling.

"It makes me sad sometimes, but it's been so long... "

Leon didn't answer, but he looked at her when the car stopped at a red light. His piercing blue eyes seemed to be looking through her, and it made her feel a little self-conscious. There was a brief moment of silence as the light turned green, and the car began moving once again.

"How did it happen? If I can ask, of course." he quickly added as he realized that the comment had come out a little harsh.

Claire didn't answer immediately. After so many years, the topic was not as painful as it used to be, but she still felt gloomy whenever she remembered her parents.

"It was a car accident." Claire replied softly, "My parents got a phone call that night and left in a rush. It was snowing heavily, and the brake malfunctioned. ."

"I…" Leon began, "I'm sorry…"

Claire shook her head and looked down to her lap.

"You already apologized, "Claire smiled at him and rested her hand on his.

The car entered the parking lot. The security guard of the building, a mid-aged man with a kind smile named Gregor, greeted them cheerfully with an effusive "Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy," giving her chills.

"Not used to it yet?" Leon asked when they stepped into the elevator, "it's been almost two months. You should be used to it by now."

"I know, but it's weird. I never thought I'd ever be called Mrs. Kennedy."

Leon chuckled and circled her shoulders with his snuggled against his embrace and smiled. In a way, the lie was becoming something a little more real now that their relationship had turned formal, and Claire had started to feel more at ease with their physical interaction.

Things were good, and that was all that mattered.

(1) Compensatory hyperplasia: the proliferation of cells while they maintain their differentiated structure and function