I bent down to look into the eyepiece.
"Oh" I said. Then, more softly. "Oh."
I was looking at a slide quite similar to the first with the notable exception of a blurry area in the upper right hand corner as if someone had smudged the lens. As I watched, the blurry section expanded and flowed out over the sample. As it spread, it seemed to be coating those horrible "spinners" with a shiny, opalescent film.
Thus hindered, the spinning of the pathogens slowed, then stopped. Their scythe-like protrusions shrinking back into their bodies as if attempting to escape from the coating, squeezing themselves smaller and smaller until they resembled tiny glass beads glinting in the bloodstream.
The shredded white blood cells appeared to be healing themselves, gathering their tattered remnants together then surrounding and absorbing the now disarmed and tiny pathogens at a leisurely pace. The few remaining red blood cells began to plump up and grow bigger turning a healthy bright red, shiny and full of life. Soon not a single spinner, alive or dead, remained.
Words failed me so I settled on saying "Oh." one last time, feeling a bit of a moron but my head was spinning with the implications of what I'd just seen. I gripped the the table with my free hand to steady myself. "I'm doing that?" I asked pressing the hand still holding my iPod against my chest. I looked up from the microscope and tapped the iPod against my chest nervously. "My tears are doing that?"
Three heads nodded in unison.
A thrill of joy shot with terror ran through me. My tears had done that? I touched my cheek thoughtfully.
"But how?" I asked with a bit of a tremor.
I should be over the moon happy right now but... But I could speak telepathically to vampires. I healed faster than I should. When I sang, I made others feel my emotions not to mention tap into, even blow up, electronic equipment. And now, when I cried, my tears burned vampire flesh, killed the deadly pathogens they mutated from their blood. Cold, cruel, vampire blood. Some of which ran through my veins. What was I becoming? What was Alucard turning me into?
Not dead. Not undead. Not necessarily human.
"Ah my dear master, that is where you are wrong. I may be incapable of love but that does not mean I do not understand how to manipulate it. I need not feel an emotion to wield its power in others. And love, for humans anyway, is a very powerful emotion."
He pretended to look hurt but complied. "It's quite simple actually. As you know, it is the initiation of blood lust, not the vampire's saliva itself, that triggers the mutation. The saliva acting more as a medium for storage and delivery. My blood blood runs through the Angel's veins which means the potential trigger lies within her as well. Just one of many gifts I have given her." He smiled at my involuntary shiver and continued. "It was a mere matter of altering her hormones and brain chemistry to activate the trigger during certain heightened emotional states but instead of mutating a pathogen she generates antigens and instead of saliva I used her tears." He spread his hands as if he has just explained he obvious.
"Those 'certain' emotional states being?"
"Love."
"Back to that are we?"
"Of course."
"But why? Wouldn't it be easier to have made negative emotions the trigger? It would certainly be easier to generate the tears."
"No, tears of pain or self pity are just that, tears but tears born of love, these hold power. Power that I can manipulate, power that I can use. Besides," He said smiling smugly. "What challenge is there in making sadness the trigger? Pain and sorrow are all to easy. I never do easy."
"Hmmm." She said sceptically. "I still don't see you voluntarily doing positive emotions, regardless of the challenge."
"He's not." I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me.
"It's part of the deal isn't it? Part of the bargain that was made that night?"
"There may have been a few ground rules, yes."
"Ha!"
"But I gladly accepted the challenge. Just think," He sent cutting off my triumph. "How much sweeter it will be to crush your spirit using your own capacity to love against you and do not doubt me Angel, I will."
I narrowed my eyes but refused to look away.
"You say production of the antigen is triggered by heightened positive emotions?" Asked Walter.
"Yes." Confirmed Alucard.
This would explain the first instance this evening when Ms. Doyle expressed her happiness over her gift earlier but..."
"Joy." Corrected Alucard.
"I beg your pardon?" Asked Walter.
"She was experiencing joy."
"Very well then, I understand then how the trigger might have activated when Ms. Doyle expressed joy but this would not explain why the antigens were still present in her tears after Ms. Victoria was injured and we had brought them both to the laboratory. Do the antigens continue to be produced for a period even after the emotion has ceased?"
No, it is quite transient."
"Then how is it there were antigens still present in the samples that were taken after Miss Victoria's unfortunate reaction in the bedroom. Surely Ms. Doyle was not experiencing any positive emotions after being hurled against a wall?"
"In fact she was. He tears were not for herself but for the Police girl. She was crying for Seras' pain."
"So her concern over Miss Victoria..."
"No, not concern."
"Compassion then."
"No, no! Not 'compassion', empathy."
"Are the semantics so important then?"
"They are vital. The difference between life and death." Alucard turned to me shaking his head. "Poor Walter, he just does not understand but how can he? He is rarely happy and I doubt he has ever experienced joy. He is noble enough to understand compassion but hasn't the humanity to experience empathy. No Angel, of the occupants of this room, I fear you alone are able to feel true joy or empathy because you alone have the capacity to love."
Sir Integra opened her mouth to object but Alucard held up a finger. "Unselfishly." She frowned and compressed her lips but said nothing.
"No dear master, do not frown. I have handed you the key to your self imposed prison. No more ghouls wearing the Hellsing badge. No more fear of turning. No more having to shoot your own men." He locked gazes with her. "We may be heartless you and I but we can rejoice in your triumph. You faith in me has led to this."
Her eyes blazed with an almost unholy ferver.
Walter frowned slightly but quickly smoothed it over. "This is a major breakthrough." He agreed.
"Even now," Said Alucard gesturing to me. "The Angel is not certain whether to yell at me for calling you heartless or cry over Walter's never feeling joy."
Sir Integra looked over at me her eyes still glowing with that intense light. "Cry." She said emphatically.
I snorted derisively and sent a mental apology to Alucard for doubting his 'heartless' comment.
He chuckled quietly and said. "I am occasionally truthful, when it suits my purpose."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Sir Integra as she continued to glower at me. "And why isn't she crying?"
I crossed my arms and glowered right back. "It means you need to work on your people skills."
Alucard grinned widely and I swear I saw Walter's mouth twitch slightly with amusement.
Sir Integra blinked once then said drily. "Not really part of my job description."
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
She turned to Walter. "Make her cry."
"Ma'am?"
She glance disgustedly at Alucard then added. "But in a positive way."
Walter tilted his head and looked at me. "Perhaps," He said soberly. "a sad story involving a puppy? Or, I could tune the radio to a country and western station."
I pressed my hand to my mouth to hold the giggles in but several escaped out around my fingers.
"No!" She shouted. "We're going in the wrong direction."
That did it. I burst out laughing stumbling back to collapse onto a lab stool. I laughed so hard tears began leaking out of my eyes.
Relief flooded through me. Who cared if Alucard's blood ran through my veins? He, himself had said I was still capable of love. As far as I was concerned that made me human enough, sod anyone who said otherwise. And if Alucard's blood gave me the ability to save others from the vampires curse, well that was a blessing, something to be grateful for not feared. As the weight of this evening's events lifted from my shoulders, I felt the tears begin to flow in earnest, tracing a hot, stinging path down my cheeks. I didn't try to stop them this time. I just laughed and let them go.
"Ah ha!" Cried Sir Integra triumphantly then she leapt forward to hold me down while Walter deftly employed several pipettes to catch the tears streaming down my face.
I tried to protest but the situation was just so ridiculous and when Alucard shook his head and said "Humans!" in a disgusted voice it only made me laugh harder. Even Sir Integra was grinning albeit in a very disturbing manner.
Finally, the lack of oxygen forced me to wind down. Sir Integra released me at my gasped "Please." and I sat quietly hiccuping a bit as Walter sopped up the last of my tears.
"I must confess Ms. Doyle," He said, handing me a handkerchief to dry my cheeks. "That while I have made many people cry over the years, this was quite the most novel."
I grinned weakly up at him then wobbled my glance over to Sir Integra. She stood a couple of feet away watching Walter place the last of the pipettes into a plastic bin. Her face once again an emotionless mask. Well, so much for that. Warm and fuzzy moments just do not last long around here.
As soon as Walter sealed the lid, she turned her blank stare on Alucard. "Will these work?'
He looked up from a bag of plasma he had been idly toying with and said in a bored tone. "They won't be as strong as the first samples but they should do for your initial testing."
"Hmmm." She said drumming her fingers on the table top. "We shall have to work on getting more." She narrowed her eyes sizing up her project. I squirmed a bit. "Best keep her hydrated. Walter please make sure she drinks plenty of water."
"Of course ma'am." Said Walter who was already handing me a glass.
"Very good." She said. She pulled pulled out a cigar and glanced at the lab equipment then up at the digital clock on the bulletin board. "Dr. Levin will be here shortly. Prep the slides and have a demonstration set to go within fifteen minutes. I shall return in ten."
"Very good ma'am." Said Walter.
She nodded the, placing the cigar in her mouth and pulling out a lighter, turned on her heel and exited the room.
Walter looked pointedly at my still full glass.
I sighed resigned to my fate of a chronically full bladder. I took a sip. "I still don't see why you had to wait this long to tell us about this." I grumped at Alucard. I rubbed the aching spot between my eyes then tossed the pills Walter pressed into my hand into my mouth and washed them down with more water. "Seras was hurt and Walter and I could been killed."
"Bah!" Said Alucard disgustedly. "Are you still blathering on about that? I make you into a medical miracle and you sit there whining over my methodology? You are a pig headed, ungrateful little worm. I often why I even bother with you." He paused mid-sneer then said. "You are right about one thing however... You stupid, useless twit! HOW DARE YOU THROW YOUR SISTER ACROSS THE ROOM LIKE THAT!!!" He roared as Seras bounced into the lab.
"Oh" I said. Then, more softly. "Oh."
I was looking at a slide quite similar to the first with the notable exception of a blurry area in the upper right hand corner as if someone had smudged the lens. As I watched, the blurry section expanded and flowed out over the sample. As it spread, it seemed to be coating those horrible "spinners" with a shiny, opalescent film.
Thus hindered, the spinning of the pathogens slowed, then stopped. Their scythe-like protrusions shrinking back into their bodies as if attempting to escape from the coating, squeezing themselves smaller and smaller until they resembled tiny glass beads glinting in the bloodstream.
The shredded white blood cells appeared to be healing themselves, gathering their tattered remnants together then surrounding and absorbing the now disarmed and tiny pathogens at a leisurely pace. The few remaining red blood cells began to plump up and grow bigger turning a healthy bright red, shiny and full of life. Soon not a single spinner, alive or dead, remained.
Words failed me so I settled on saying "Oh." one last time, feeling a bit of a moron but my head was spinning with the implications of what I'd just seen. I gripped the the table with my free hand to steady myself. "I'm doing that?" I asked pressing the hand still holding my iPod against my chest. I looked up from the microscope and tapped the iPod against my chest nervously. "My tears are doing that?"
Three heads nodded in unison.
A thrill of joy shot with terror ran through me. My tears had done that? I touched my cheek thoughtfully.
"But how?" I asked with a bit of a tremor.
I should be over the moon happy right now but... But I could speak telepathically to vampires. I healed faster than I should. When I sang, I made others feel my emotions not to mention tap into, even blow up, electronic equipment. And now, when I cried, my tears burned vampire flesh, killed the deadly pathogens they mutated from their blood. Cold, cruel, vampire blood. Some of which ran through my veins. What was I becoming? What was Alucard turning me into?
Not dead. Not undead. Not necessarily human.
Alucard chortled smugly through my mind. "That's right Angel." He sent. "I may not be remaking you in my own image but I am remaking you." Aloud he said. "Love."
"What?" Asked Sir Integra.
"Love." He repeated.
"I don't understand." She said.
"Of course not." He smirked. "We are, after all, talking about love."
"Oh as if you possibly could."
"Ah my dear master, that is where you are wrong. I may be incapable of love but that does not mean I do not understand how to manipulate it. I need not feel an emotion to wield its power in others. And love, for humans anyway, is a very powerful emotion."
"So she blubbers love all over people and this will cure a vampire bite?" She sneered.
"So cynical." He tsked. "Your own God used love to create the world yet you fail to believe that I could use love to de-construct a molecular fragment? I am distressed by your lack of faith."
She snorted. "I doubt it. Now tell me how does this love-fest work?"
He pretended to look hurt but complied. "It's quite simple actually. As you know, it is the initiation of blood lust, not the vampire's saliva itself, that triggers the mutation. The saliva acting more as a medium for storage and delivery. My blood blood runs through the Angel's veins which means the potential trigger lies within her as well. Just one of many gifts I have given her." He smiled at my involuntary shiver and continued. "It was a mere matter of altering her hormones and brain chemistry to activate the trigger during certain heightened emotional states but instead of mutating a pathogen she generates antigens and instead of saliva I used her tears." He spread his hands as if he has just explained he obvious.
"Those 'certain' emotional states being?"
"Love."
"Back to that are we?"
"Of course."
"But why? Wouldn't it be easier to have made negative emotions the trigger? It would certainly be easier to generate the tears."
"No, tears of pain or self pity are just that, tears but tears born of love, these hold power. Power that I can manipulate, power that I can use. Besides," He said smiling smugly. "What challenge is there in making sadness the trigger? Pain and sorrow are all to easy. I never do easy."
"Hmmm." She said sceptically. "I still don't see you voluntarily doing positive emotions, regardless of the challenge."
"He's not." I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me.
"It's part of the deal isn't it? Part of the bargain that was made that night?"
"There may have been a few ground rules, yes."
"Ha!"
"But I gladly accepted the challenge. Just think," He sent cutting off my triumph. "How much sweeter it will be to crush your spirit using your own capacity to love against you and do not doubt me Angel, I will."
I narrowed my eyes but refused to look away.
"You say production of the antigen is triggered by heightened positive emotions?" Asked Walter.
"Yes." Confirmed Alucard.
This would explain the first instance this evening when Ms. Doyle expressed her happiness over her gift earlier but..."
"Joy." Corrected Alucard.
"I beg your pardon?" Asked Walter.
"She was experiencing joy."
"Very well then, I understand then how the trigger might have activated when Ms. Doyle expressed joy but this would not explain why the antigens were still present in her tears after Ms. Victoria was injured and we had brought them both to the laboratory. Do the antigens continue to be produced for a period even after the emotion has ceased?"
No, it is quite transient."
"Then how is it there were antigens still present in the samples that were taken after Miss Victoria's unfortunate reaction in the bedroom. Surely Ms. Doyle was not experiencing any positive emotions after being hurled against a wall?"
"In fact she was. He tears were not for herself but for the Police girl. She was crying for Seras' pain."
"So her concern over Miss Victoria..."
"No, not concern."
"Compassion then."
"No, no! Not 'compassion', empathy."
"Are the semantics so important then?"
"They are vital. The difference between life and death." Alucard turned to me shaking his head. "Poor Walter, he just does not understand but how can he? He is rarely happy and I doubt he has ever experienced joy. He is noble enough to understand compassion but hasn't the humanity to experience empathy. No Angel, of the occupants of this room, I fear you alone are able to feel true joy or empathy because you alone have the capacity to love."
Sir Integra opened her mouth to object but Alucard held up a finger. "Unselfishly." She frowned and compressed her lips but said nothing.
"No dear master, do not frown. I have handed you the key to your self imposed prison. No more ghouls wearing the Hellsing badge. No more fear of turning. No more having to shoot your own men." He locked gazes with her. "We may be heartless you and I but we can rejoice in your triumph. You faith in me has led to this."
Her eyes blazed with an almost unholy ferver.
Walter frowned slightly but quickly smoothed it over. "This is a major breakthrough." He agreed.
"Even now," Said Alucard gesturing to me. "The Angel is not certain whether to yell at me for calling you heartless or cry over Walter's never feeling joy."
Sir Integra looked over at me her eyes still glowing with that intense light. "Cry." She said emphatically.
I snorted derisively and sent a mental apology to Alucard for doubting his 'heartless' comment.
He chuckled quietly and said. "I am occasionally truthful, when it suits my purpose."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Sir Integra as she continued to glower at me. "And why isn't she crying?"
I crossed my arms and glowered right back. "It means you need to work on your people skills."
Alucard grinned widely and I swear I saw Walter's mouth twitch slightly with amusement.
Sir Integra blinked once then said drily. "Not really part of my job description."
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
She turned to Walter. "Make her cry."
"Ma'am?"
She glance disgustedly at Alucard then added. "But in a positive way."
Walter tilted his head and looked at me. "Perhaps," He said soberly. "a sad story involving a puppy? Or, I could tune the radio to a country and western station."
I pressed my hand to my mouth to hold the giggles in but several escaped out around my fingers.
"No!" She shouted. "We're going in the wrong direction."
That did it. I burst out laughing stumbling back to collapse onto a lab stool. I laughed so hard tears began leaking out of my eyes.
Relief flooded through me. Who cared if Alucard's blood ran through my veins? He, himself had said I was still capable of love. As far as I was concerned that made me human enough, sod anyone who said otherwise. And if Alucard's blood gave me the ability to save others from the vampires curse, well that was a blessing, something to be grateful for not feared. As the weight of this evening's events lifted from my shoulders, I felt the tears begin to flow in earnest, tracing a hot, stinging path down my cheeks. I didn't try to stop them this time. I just laughed and let them go.
"Ah ha!" Cried Sir Integra triumphantly then she leapt forward to hold me down while Walter deftly employed several pipettes to catch the tears streaming down my face.
I tried to protest but the situation was just so ridiculous and when Alucard shook his head and said "Humans!" in a disgusted voice it only made me laugh harder. Even Sir Integra was grinning albeit in a very disturbing manner.
Finally, the lack of oxygen forced me to wind down. Sir Integra released me at my gasped "Please." and I sat quietly hiccuping a bit as Walter sopped up the last of my tears.
"I must confess Ms. Doyle," He said, handing me a handkerchief to dry my cheeks. "That while I have made many people cry over the years, this was quite the most novel."
I grinned weakly up at him then wobbled my glance over to Sir Integra. She stood a couple of feet away watching Walter place the last of the pipettes into a plastic bin. Her face once again an emotionless mask. Well, so much for that. Warm and fuzzy moments just do not last long around here.
As soon as Walter sealed the lid, she turned her blank stare on Alucard. "Will these work?'
He looked up from a bag of plasma he had been idly toying with and said in a bored tone. "They won't be as strong as the first samples but they should do for your initial testing."
"Hmmm." She said drumming her fingers on the table top. "We shall have to work on getting more." She narrowed her eyes sizing up her project. I squirmed a bit. "Best keep her hydrated. Walter please make sure she drinks plenty of water."
"Of course ma'am." Said Walter who was already handing me a glass.
"Very good." She said. She pulled pulled out a cigar and glanced at the lab equipment then up at the digital clock on the bulletin board. "Dr. Levin will be here shortly. Prep the slides and have a demonstration set to go within fifteen minutes. I shall return in ten."
"Very good ma'am." Said Walter.
She nodded the, placing the cigar in her mouth and pulling out a lighter, turned on her heel and exited the room.
Walter looked pointedly at my still full glass.
I sighed resigned to my fate of a chronically full bladder. I took a sip. "I still don't see why you had to wait this long to tell us about this." I grumped at Alucard. I rubbed the aching spot between my eyes then tossed the pills Walter pressed into my hand into my mouth and washed them down with more water. "Seras was hurt and Walter and I could been killed."
"Bah!" Said Alucard disgustedly. "Are you still blathering on about that? I make you into a medical miracle and you sit there whining over my methodology? You are a pig headed, ungrateful little worm. I often why I even bother with you." He paused mid-sneer then said. "You are right about one thing however... You stupid, useless twit! HOW DARE YOU THROW YOUR SISTER ACROSS THE ROOM LIKE THAT!!!" He roared as Seras bounced into the lab.
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