Office Hours [Open]

[governmentninja]

Sometimes it was one thing after another with this crew. Other times, it was several things at once, as evidenced by the most recent series of events.

But Leon had to handle all of it. He was in the big chair now, literally in this case. He was in the Captain's Office, located just off the main bridge. It was fairly sparsely decorated, but had one hell of a view of the Bleed.

Not that Leon was taking too much time to enjoy it, he had a lot of work to do.

Comments

[notlewis]

Luis was his usual tired-looking, weary-eyed self as he headed into Leon's office with a gigantic stack of papers-- but he was in a bizarrely good mood for once.

"Hey, you're not going to believe this. But I've got some good news for once."

[governmentninja]

"That's certainly a change," he noted. He could use some good news, for once.

"Let's hear it."

[notlewis]

Luis set his massive stack of papers down, flipping through the first few pages to find the one he was looking for. "I've been actually making progress with Veronica. It's not a lot of progress, but it's more than we've had in months."

He fished out a complex-looking sheet of chemical formulas, setting it down apart from the pile almost triumphantly. "Scarlet and I have improved on the suppressant that the former crew left us to the point where it should be able to shut down the virus' reproductive capabilities-- that is, what makes it able to mutate so rapidly. There's also some bad news..."

He paused and scratched the back of his head. "Injecting it into infected tissue causes the virus' regenerative capabilities to kick into overdrive in an attempt to compensate. Which just makes it mutate. But there's more good news."

[governmentninja]

You kind of lost him at the part with the bad news, Luis. But that was nothing new. Leon was used to hearing Luis explain things in Science, then explain them again in English.

"Go on."

[notlewis]

"It was actually your big nasty plasma gun that gave me the idea," Luis said off-handedly. "I figured we would need to find a way to stop the virus' regeneration in order to get the suppressant to work, so I decided to try electrical stimulation. As it turns out, electricity does affect the virus' regeneration. At a small voltage, it will short out the virus' cells and prevent them from regenerating, which will allow the suppressant to work without any side effects. Too large a voltage, though, and..." Well, then you had the linear launcher.

Long pause.

"So basically," here came the English explanation, "we have something that can stop Veronica from mutating the kid. But if we inject it straight, it'll make him mutate. So we have to shock him first, but not too much, or it'll kill him."

[governmentninja]

And now that Leon got the Science for Dummies answer, he was able to grasp what was going on relatively clearly. So basically, they had something close to a cure, but it was risky.

"That doesn't sound like it leaves you a wide margin for error."

[notlewis]

"Not really, no. Not at all."

Luis had a seat in one of the chairs across from Leon's desk. "But it's a start. We can work on finding an equilibrium that will work safely. Once we find it, we can treat the virus-- and won't have to worry about mutations until we find a full-out cure."

[governmentninja]

"That is good news," which was a welcome change. "How long until you can figure out the right balance?"

[notlewis]

"Not sure," Luis admitted, tapping his fingers on the desk. "Obviously working on tissue samples in a petri dish is a little different than working on a full-size teenage boy, but we get a little closer every day. Factoring in enough time for safety trials... a few weeks?"

[governmentninja]

"That's good. So that'll be at least one major problem taken care of." Not that there wasn't a stack of a thousand things behind it.

[notlewis]

"Right." Luis looked very pleased about that. "I've developed a treatment for the go'auld as well... and then there's the Yeerks, which, violent ethical riots aside, we can also, er, deal with if it comes to it."

He'd been a busy little bee in that lab of his lately.

[governmentninja]

"Damn." That's just what Leon wanted to hear.

"I'm impressed."

[notlewis]

"Thank you." Said with no small shortage of ego.

"Hopefully that should cover us as far as science miracles go for the foreseeable future."