This is based off of Lab by SapphireSwimming, by request. I wrote a review then that she begged so prettil... ahem, I mean she asked nicely if I might turn it into a story...
The Quantum Tunneling Electron Microscope is a real thing called a Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscope. It doesn't work this way; it's way more complicated. NMR works this way tho.
College oneshot, no PP.
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Danny tuned out the professor as he stared through a microscope and manipulated the tiny little needle that was supposed to pull the nucleus out of this stupid cell of his. Sam and Tucker were no help; they wouldn't let Danny use a cheek swab from them, no, that would be cheating. Danny pouted. They were probably curious as to how his DNA would show up on the screen. This brand new whatsit, whatever his professor was calling it, the Quantum Tunneling Electron Microscope or whatever. They were supposed to be able to remove the nucleus of a cell then the machine would put it in a vial then add in a chemical. Then a drop of the solution went on a slide then the slide gets heated then they'd be able to take it up to the professor for him to put in the microscope. And then they were going to get to look at their DNA. Supposedly this was some new science breakthrough or something but Danny didn't care. He was too busy trying not to be nervous as he lined up the needle next to the cell under his microscope and pressed the button for the computer to shove a needle in and oh hell he missed.
Ugh.
"Hey man," Tucker said. "You're not done yet?"
"Screw you, Tuck," Danny grumbled, lining up another cell. This time it worked and the machine hummed as it prepared his slide. "This would be easier if you let me use your cells."
"No way, dude."
The machine spat out Danny's slide. He grumbled and carried it over to the front of the room where he had to stand in line to wait his turn.
It wasn't uninteresting. The professor would put the slide in a little slot and the giant microscope would hum before showing a picture on a little screen. The professor would then show the student then if the student nodded he'd put the picture up on the wall with the projector. Most everyone said yes and everyone's DNA looked the same. Sure it was all oriented differently, like strands of spaghetti on a plate, but it was all boring bumpy-looking blue-white strands against a dark gray background. A couple of slides still had big yellow x-shaped chromosomes.
"Fenton."
Danny gazed at the projection on the screen, wondering if his was going to be any different.
"Fenton!"
Danny jumped, almost dropping his slide. The people behind him giggled as the professor glared at Danny for not paying attention. Danny blushed and handed his slide to the professor.
The giant microscope hummed and thought before the screen in front of the professor flickered on. Danny's face fell when he was what was on it. He blamed Tucker and Sam for this.
"Mr. Fenton, your DNA is green and is staring at me with little red eyes," his professor said. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"
Danny cringed. "Ummm... No?" He cringed again when his refusal sounded like a question.
The professor looked at the green DNA and its little red eyes. It was a static picture but he still caught the sense of movement in how the eyes seemed to realize they were being observed. One set even looked like it was in mid-blink. "I'm sending a sample over to Chemistry," he said.
"What?! No! No you can't!"
His professor left, slide in hand. Danny made frantic gestures at the door before slumping down and growling. He could feel his eyes glow green.
"Dude, no fair. Now we gotta wait."
Danny glared at the guy in line behind him. He snorted and left the room.
Danny ducked into a nearby bathroom and transformed. Drastic situations called for drastic measures.
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Danny found his professor ranting to a grad student about what he'd seen on the screen. Bright green DNA, spread out a bit more like a viscous liquid than DNA should be under such high magnification. Little red eyes, many of which seemed to know they were being looked at by the microscope. Eyes that blinked, eyes that had expression, eyes that seemed to convey a sense of mischievous giggles. What might have been a couple of mouths under the eyes. One of the mouths seemed like it was half open, the vague possibility of a tongue sticking out. No he hadn't recorded the microscope's output. Yes that meant he had no proof. Oh just scrape the damned slide and run a battery of tests. I don't care, just NMR the lot, red eyes and oozy green DNA has to show up as something strange on NMR.
His professor stormed off back to the lab class and the probably quite irate line of students waiting for their slides to be scanned. Danny waited until the grad student scraped the slide, mixed up a vial for testing, then began the actual scans.
The computer attached to the NMR displayed the raw data on the screen. Danny looked hopeful until the grad student's eyes went wide.
Okay, that was close enough. Danny dove into the student, overshadowing him.
Hmm. He'd never worked with an NMR machine before. He hoped he didn't screw this up.
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"Well, we ran Mr. Fenton's DNA through the H-NMR, the C-NMR, and the P-NMR. I think it's safe to say that Mr. Fenton does indeed have DNA."
"And? Why is it green with little red eyes? Why did it blink? Why was there a mouth? Why didn't it look like a solid molecule?!"
"I think you need to lay off the caffeine, sir. It causes hallucinations, you know. Maybe you should lie down."
"Maybe I should..."
Still overshadowing the grad student, Danny watched as his professor left. He tried not to look like he noticed the suspicious look his professor was giving him.
Throwing him off had been simple. It turned out the computer had scans saved on its hard drive. It was a simple matter of pulling up some saved scans of someone else's DNA. The scans looked pretty useless to Danny, just a forest of lines in random places that he guessed were supposed to tell him something. The best he could tell was that the "normal" forest of lines looked different from the forest of lines caused by scanning his DNA. Still, couldn't risk anyone finding this.
He deleted the scan of his DNA, not even bothering to print out a copy. It wasn't worth it and, besides, he couldn't read it.
He destroyed the sample, snapping the vial in half and dumping it in the biohazard and broken glass container.
Gone. It was all gone. "That was close," Danny said as he drifted out of the grad student, not remembering to stay invisible.
"Wha?" The grad student blinked around the room, eyes alighting on Danny as he floated there. "GHOST!"
Danny slapped his hand to his face as the grad student ran and hid behind the giant magnet of the NMR. He sighed and flew off through the ceiling. He had to get back to lab, anyway, or his professor was going to yell at him.