Forge and Pete, early Sunday morning
May. 13th, 2007 01:10 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsWith the data retrieved from Dr. Campbell's labs, Forge jumps to a conclusion and goes to the one person who's enough of a bastard to be willing to follow up on it.
Forge took the stairs two at a time, unabashedly using the edge of his prosthetic foot for leverage to get up to the third floor as quickly as he could. Thankfully the doorman had recognized him and just waved him by despite the late hour, although the slowness of the elevator necessitated taking a more physical approach.
Pausing at the landing, Forge pushed a lock of sweat-soaked hair out of his face, then looked at the four doors leading to the apartments on the floor. "Crap," he grumbled, shuffling over to the nearest one and knocking rapidly.
"I'm never going to let fucking Jesus into my life, it doesn't matter how often you-" Pete stopped as he opened the door, and saw who was standing there. "Forge? What the fuck are you doing here, and why do you look like you just ran all the way here?"
Forge caught his breath, trying to stand up straight and wave the small folder of data emphatically. "We had... three students kidnapped a few days ago. Dr. Rory Campbell behind it, but you know all that. He ran some kind of genetic modification on them, splicing traits, just horrible stuff. And I knew I'd seen it before and I couldn't remember where and then it hit me because Campbell worked on Muir and I spent a bit of time there back in February and I remember looking through files with stuff just like this and--"
He stopped, taking a deep breath to keep from hyperventilating. "It's Nathaniel Essex's work, the same that got used to merge Kevin MacTaggart's DNA with that poor Proteus kid. I need to get in touch with Doctor Essex."
"Well, there's phrase I never thought I'd hear a member of staff at Xavier's say without adding 'so I can stamp repeatedly on his testicles' on the end. Come in, squire."
Pete gestured past him to let the young man in.
Inside, the flat was surprisingly tidy. There was a pile of papers on the coffee table, beside an open laptop, and a half full ashtray, but other than that, the place was a lot tider than most people's assessment of Pete would suggest. The TV was on, running BBC News 24, but Pete hit mute.
"OK, that's why you're here. But why didn't Charlie just ring me? I mean, I think he understands what a telephone is. And I know *you* do..."
"The Professor doesn't know yet," Forge explained, glancing around the apartment. "And to be honest, I know about Essex's dealings and reputation with the school. I prefer handing them a fait accompli rather than going through all the pointless 'can we trust him?' discussions. If I could come up with any other option to save my friends, believe me, I would." Exhausted, Forge leaned against the wall and shook his head.
"Not to mention in a house full of telepaths, especially ones with overdeveloped senses of medical ethics, saying the words 'I need Nathaniel Essex's help' is probably a one-way ticket to mandatory tea with the Professor," he added with a smirk.
Pete grinned briefly at the last comment, before his expression turned serious again. "OK. That explains the running here. But Essex is an industrial grade bastard, and the less access he has to *anyone's* genetic material, the better. Are you absolutely fucking sure that between you, Moira and McCoy there is *no* way to figure this out without him? I mean, I know he can probably do it quicker, but how much quicker?"
"This is his work, just bastardized," Forge explained. "It'd take Moira and Hank weeks to decipher, even with what they have of Essex's original research. He's the kind of guy who keeps most of his notes in his head, you know? A lot like me. And from what the medical notes they recovered from Rory say, the longer that Kyle and Marius and Jennie stay like this, the more likely their bodies will accept this as a default state. Or," he said in a solemn tone, "they'll start rejecting their own DNA and die horribly in probably less than 48 hours. I hate it as much as anyone, but goddammit, we need Essex's help. Call it a favor returned for the Xorn thing, whatever. Or whatever we - whatever I have to do to get him to help."
"Fuck." Pete turned to the laptop, and paged through the address book.
"Yeah, I've got a number I can probably reach him with, but you realise that we're both going to be massively unpopular for this?"
Forge shrugged. "No one likes you anyway. And frankly, I'm on schedule for another meaningless diatribe about ethics and 'chain of command' that I can basically ignore. I'm not about to let someone else's idea of who I can and can't associate with have any effect on saving the lives of my friends. Do you want to make the call, or should I?"
Pete raised an eyebrow.
"I'll call, and pass him over to you. I'd be pissed off if I thought he was giving my number out to anyone, no matter how good their case was, and the bastard works hard at being hard to find."
He picked up the phone, and started dialing.
"Is that the mad Doktor? Pete Wisdom here. Sorry to interrupt your busy golfing schedule, but I've got John Forge here, with a literal matter of life and death that apparently you're the only person on the planet clever enough to understand before someone dies."
Forge took the stairs two at a time, unabashedly using the edge of his prosthetic foot for leverage to get up to the third floor as quickly as he could. Thankfully the doorman had recognized him and just waved him by despite the late hour, although the slowness of the elevator necessitated taking a more physical approach.
Pausing at the landing, Forge pushed a lock of sweat-soaked hair out of his face, then looked at the four doors leading to the apartments on the floor. "Crap," he grumbled, shuffling over to the nearest one and knocking rapidly.
"I'm never going to let fucking Jesus into my life, it doesn't matter how often you-" Pete stopped as he opened the door, and saw who was standing there. "Forge? What the fuck are you doing here, and why do you look like you just ran all the way here?"
Forge caught his breath, trying to stand up straight and wave the small folder of data emphatically. "We had... three students kidnapped a few days ago. Dr. Rory Campbell behind it, but you know all that. He ran some kind of genetic modification on them, splicing traits, just horrible stuff. And I knew I'd seen it before and I couldn't remember where and then it hit me because Campbell worked on Muir and I spent a bit of time there back in February and I remember looking through files with stuff just like this and--"
He stopped, taking a deep breath to keep from hyperventilating. "It's Nathaniel Essex's work, the same that got used to merge Kevin MacTaggart's DNA with that poor Proteus kid. I need to get in touch with Doctor Essex."
"Well, there's phrase I never thought I'd hear a member of staff at Xavier's say without adding 'so I can stamp repeatedly on his testicles' on the end. Come in, squire."
Pete gestured past him to let the young man in.
Inside, the flat was surprisingly tidy. There was a pile of papers on the coffee table, beside an open laptop, and a half full ashtray, but other than that, the place was a lot tider than most people's assessment of Pete would suggest. The TV was on, running BBC News 24, but Pete hit mute.
"OK, that's why you're here. But why didn't Charlie just ring me? I mean, I think he understands what a telephone is. And I know *you* do..."
"The Professor doesn't know yet," Forge explained, glancing around the apartment. "And to be honest, I know about Essex's dealings and reputation with the school. I prefer handing them a fait accompli rather than going through all the pointless 'can we trust him?' discussions. If I could come up with any other option to save my friends, believe me, I would." Exhausted, Forge leaned against the wall and shook his head.
"Not to mention in a house full of telepaths, especially ones with overdeveloped senses of medical ethics, saying the words 'I need Nathaniel Essex's help' is probably a one-way ticket to mandatory tea with the Professor," he added with a smirk.
Pete grinned briefly at the last comment, before his expression turned serious again. "OK. That explains the running here. But Essex is an industrial grade bastard, and the less access he has to *anyone's* genetic material, the better. Are you absolutely fucking sure that between you, Moira and McCoy there is *no* way to figure this out without him? I mean, I know he can probably do it quicker, but how much quicker?"
"This is his work, just bastardized," Forge explained. "It'd take Moira and Hank weeks to decipher, even with what they have of Essex's original research. He's the kind of guy who keeps most of his notes in his head, you know? A lot like me. And from what the medical notes they recovered from Rory say, the longer that Kyle and Marius and Jennie stay like this, the more likely their bodies will accept this as a default state. Or," he said in a solemn tone, "they'll start rejecting their own DNA and die horribly in probably less than 48 hours. I hate it as much as anyone, but goddammit, we need Essex's help. Call it a favor returned for the Xorn thing, whatever. Or whatever we - whatever I have to do to get him to help."
"Fuck." Pete turned to the laptop, and paged through the address book.
"Yeah, I've got a number I can probably reach him with, but you realise that we're both going to be massively unpopular for this?"
Forge shrugged. "No one likes you anyway. And frankly, I'm on schedule for another meaningless diatribe about ethics and 'chain of command' that I can basically ignore. I'm not about to let someone else's idea of who I can and can't associate with have any effect on saving the lives of my friends. Do you want to make the call, or should I?"
Pete raised an eyebrow.
"I'll call, and pass him over to you. I'd be pissed off if I thought he was giving my number out to anyone, no matter how good their case was, and the bastard works hard at being hard to find."
He picked up the phone, and started dialing.
"Is that the mad Doktor? Pete Wisdom here. Sorry to interrupt your busy golfing schedule, but I've got John Forge here, with a literal matter of life and death that apparently you're the only person on the planet clever enough to understand before someone dies."
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