A/N: Quick update, just like I promised.
Chapter 9: Plants
Several small plants were lined up along the work bench in the Kraang lab the next morning. Laura had a clip board cradled in one arm while she marked down measurements with the other. From this batch, she isolated three plants that met the Sandrum's criteria. Placing the clipboard down, she moved each of these three into their own isolation compartments. It was always best to be on the safe side when playing with the elixir.
"Ready for transfusion," Laura reported as she sealed the last compartment. Sandrum came over with an excited look on his face.
"This is my favorite part," he whispered before pressing a button on a remote control. A hatch in each of the compartments opened above each plant, dropping small amounts of mutagen onto the them.
Laura watched in fascination as the mutation progressed. One of the plants turned a deep red colour and the chloroplasts became large green dots on the leaves, which dried out quickly. The whole thing sagged under a weight it was not used to and crumbled into nothing.
Another one started growing out of control; vines and leaves snaked around the small compartment, trying to find a way out. When the viewing window started to crack, safety measures went into effect and the compartment was blasted with fire, incinerating the whole thing before it could break free.
The last one started sprouting small round purple fruits, which was odd since it was a kind of grass. With later testing, it was found that these fruits contained a mild toxin that's used to stun birds.
"Well that is interesting," Sandrum said as he fingered one of the berries produced by the third plant. "I wonder what it would need to stun birds for?"
"Do any of your specimens ever attack you?" Laura asked out of no where.
"Hm?" Sandrum looked up from his reverie. "Oh, no hardly ever. Although it has happened once or twice, I've found that using plants is much safer than live animals. It seems that if the original organism doesn't possess a consciousness, chances are that it won't come back to attack you."
"Now that's thinking it through," Laura admitted. "But I still think that it would be even better if there was a lid on the elixir." She turned and eyed the large container of mutagen in the middle of the room.
"Why do you call it that?" Sandrum asked suddenly.
"Call what?"
"The mutagen. You call it an elixir. Why?"
"Huh," Laura thought for a second. "I do, don't I. I don't know, I guess I like the word. E-lix-ir. You don't really hear people call a solution an elixir much anymore."
"Hmm," Sandrum considered her words.
"Oh, and another thing, it's so generic to just call it 'mutagen'. I mean seriously, when I've got, like, seven different kinds of chemical mutagens bouncing through my head, it helps to keep things straight."
"Interesting," Sandrum said.
"You think we'll be able to extract DNA from this one," Laura asked turning back to the now mutant plants, eyeing the first one that crumbled under it's own weight. The whole thing was dried out and turned into an ash-like substance.
"Eh, don't bother," Sandrum replied, turning to the plant that sprouted fruit, "this one will be enough. Start the extraction and prep for cloning." Sandrum checked over a few other things
"Right-o boss," Laura said, removing the plant from the containment unit then got to work. She took samples from the plant and started to extract the DNA. She mixed a few chemical reagents together to separate the DNA from other cellular debris before setting up an amplification reaction to replicate and increase the amount of DNA that she would later analyze.
She left the sample to amplify and went back to the original plant and took further clippings, making sure that each clipping would be able to grow apart from the original plant, creating genetically identical versions of the mutant plant they were studying.
Then the doors to their lab clicked and slid open, revealing two squishy, brain blobs on hover pods. They glided into the room and began inspecting all the proceedings.
"You're here early," Sandrum said, following the hovering Kraang around the lab.
"The one known as Professor Sandrum will inform Kraang of any and all proceedings on the project," one of them said, the small mouth piece that was built into their pod flashed pink as the words were translated from original Kraang dialect.
"Yes, yes, yes," Sandrum brushed them off. He then brought them over to the isolation compartments and showed them what they were doing and what they were planning for future tests.
Laura promptly ignored the whole exchanged and went back to tending to the new plants. She tried not to draw attention to herself, keeping a low profile would keep the heat off of her while she poked around where she wasn't supposed to.
Laura fingered the USB drive around her neck again. The small drive held all the information she had on her brother's condition that she had brought over to show Grape the previous day. The previous night, after everyone had turned in for the night, Laura stayed up at the computer, sifting through every experiment and plan that the Kraang were cooking up; at least the ones that taking place in this particular Kraang facility. She had also taken the time to make a copy of Kennington's work on her USB. If she did have to bail for some reason, at least she would have something to show for it.
Throughout the night, she had tried to incorporate Kennington's work into her own problem. Laura had come up with a few ideas, but it would still be a long time before she could come up with something to help unthaw her brother.
Crash!
The sound brought Laura out of her day dream. Her head snapped up and saw that on the ground was the original plant that had sprouted fruit, soil everywhere and the plant crushed. The fall is what caused the loud noise. She jumped forward when she saw that the Kraang that knocked over the plant was now playing with her amplification reaction. The stupid bubble gum wad had popped open the tube and was peering inside like it was the most interesting thing world.
"What the hell!" Laura snapped, grabbing the tube from the brain. The Retard Kraang screeched at her and she hissed right back at it.
"Seriously," Laura mumbled as she capped the tube again angrily, "you probably just contaminated the whole freaking sample! And then you go and smash the original mutant plant. How do you expect work to get done when you come in and ruin everything?"
"Easy, Laura," Sandrum stepped in, trying to calm his assistant. The other hover Kraang flew over and slapped his partner with a tentacle. The two then started screeching at each other, probably arguing over who's the bigger idiot.
Laura growled as the Retard Kraang tried to reach for her stuff again. Something snapped in Laura as someone, yet again, tried to wreck what she was trying to do.
That's it! Laura thought. In a second she was slapping the snaking tentacle with her faithful, wooden ruler. So much for not drawing attention to herself.
"Laura!" Sandrum scolded as the Retard Kraang screeched at the Assistant.
"What!" Laura snapped back, "I'm not just gonna stand around and let these retards ruin my reactions. You don't mess around with my work!"
In retaliation, the Retard Kraang's hover pod started humming and glowing a haunting pink, building up energy. The laser shot out, piercing the beloved ruler Laura still held in her hand. The force of the shot snapped the flimsy piece of wood in half, and Laura dropped the whole thing in surprise.
Shit, that was close, Laura thought not coming out of the confrontation fully unscathed. Her hand hurt where the heat of the laser scorched it.
"The one known as the Assistant should know her place," the other Kraang said threateningly before turning around and leaving the lab. The Retard Kraang laughed at Laura's fearful expression as she eyed the pieces of her once reliable ruler and held her burned hand. The other Kraang screeched from the doorway and the Retard Kraang screeched back before following it out of the lab.
"Laura, you shouldn't go against them like that," Sandrum said after the door had sealed shut again. He reached out to take a look at Laura's burned hand but she yanked it away.
She knelt down and her body began to tremble as she collected the fragments of her once weapon. The ends were smouldered and the red plastic had melted and hardened into a malformed shape.
"Why do I always get myself into these situations?" Laura whispered, but her voice didn't hold the fear that one would think it would. Instead, Laura's voice held an anger, and her body trembled with rage, not fear.
"Laura?" Sandrum asked warily. Laura stood up and placed her ruined ruler on her desk, beside the computer. A few chunks of the red plastic snapped off at the movement.
"Damn it!" Laura pounded the desk, "Those bastards. Think they can do whatever the hell they want. . ."
No! Calm down, calm down. . . Laura thought to herself. It's alright, everything's okay. You gotta keep it together, you've got a job to do, so do it! It's just some stupid ruler. Just one stupid test. You only have one brother. You can't afford to mess this up now.
Laura regained control of her emotions. No stupid, retarded, pink, brain thing with a laser was going to stop her from using the Kraang and their acquired knowledge to get what she wanted. She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath and returned to her ruined experiment.
"Sorry, Professor," Laura said as she bent down to clean up the ruined plant, "let's just get back to work."
Sandrum looked at her worriedly as she went about her business. He turned around uneasily to re-asses his samples when Laura called out to him.
"Hey, look at this," she said picking up part of the ruined plant. She pointed to what was once a small purple fruit. In the short amount of time since it had been mutated, no more than 30 minutes, the fruit had withered away giving rise to a beautiful purple and pink flower.
"That's not right," Sandrum said inspecting the flower closer. "The flower blooms before the fruit forms, not the other way around. . ."
He handled the flower with care, so as to preserve it as he analyzed the strange behaviour. But despite his efforts, and unbeknownst to him, a small seed dislodged itself from the inner workings of the flower and floated on the strange air currents in the room until it came to a rest in an open, glowing, green solution. Then it began to change.
Oo0oO
The day wore on as Laura and Sandrum worked away in the lab, trying to undo the damage caused by the Retard Kraang. Even though she had a lot on her plate, Laura's mind couldn't help but wander to think about the virus. The Kraang's latest plan; to infect the people of New York City with a mutagenic virus that could spread like the plague. Laura knew that her turtle acquaintances would be able to deal everything, but that little nagging feeling still hung around.
Laura had managed to salvage enough of the original mutant plant to perform a decent DNA extraction. The sample was amplifying when Laura finally noticed something odd in the vat of mutagen that dominated the lab.
A small dark shadow, the seed that had unknowingly fallen in, was floating in the elixir, soaking up the mutagen. Laura tilted her head in confusion as she drew closer to it. She yelped and jumped back as the seed suddenly began to grow.
A small leaf burst out of the shell, followed by a stalk, followed by more leaves. The plant continued to suck up more mutagen and grow at an astonishing rate. Bark started to form on the stalks and branches broke away from what was now becoming the trunk.
The glass that made up the walls of the vat begun to crack as this new life refused to stop growing. Roots smashed their way through the frail glass, digging into the floor and back out again. Mutagen started to spill out of the holes, but the roots grew thicker and blocked the damage that it had made. The trunk of the tree grew tall, and the branches sprung out of the mutagen from the top of the container, the leaves glowing as the elixir slid off them and back into the vat that was now only half full.
The final product stood tall and proud. A large tree, 30 feet in high with soft glowing bark and shining blue leaves rested in the now half empty vat that will still draining as the tree continued to suck up the mutagen. The whole process took less than two minutes.
"Oh my God," Sandrum breathed as he took in the new sight.
"And that's why we use lids," Laura said, equally astonished.
A/N: Safety note, always keep a lid on any hazardous materials you may be working with, unless you want a giant mutant tree sprouting in your experiment. :P Remember to Review and stuffs.