screwloose | [RL with Birkin]

Birkin jogged through the halls of the facility, trying to find some sedatives. He currently had a Licker chained to an examination table - a feat that involved luring it into the room with little bits of raw meat and working very, very quickly - but he doubted that would manage to hold the thing for long. He figured it wouldn't be too nice to have his guest getting ripped to pieces just because Wesker never bothered to stock that particular room.

He turned a corner and noticed he wasn't alone. A few yards in front of him was a person who he didn't immediately recognize. Until Birkin noticed the bolt sticking out of the person's head, that is. With a smirk, he ran up to his fellow scientist. "You must be Stein. I hope it wasn't too hard getting someone to take you here." He offered the other man a hand. That Licker would be fine for a little while; it wasn't a dire enough situation to grab Stein and start pulling him around during his search.

Stein sensed an unfamiliar human soul approaching before Birkin rounded the corner, but he recognized him well enough from his pictures to know who he was almost before he opened his mouth.

He smiled and gladly took Birkin's hand, shaking it with a firm grip. His fingers were calloused, and not just from using a scalpel. While he was wearing a lab coat that hid much of his figure, his clothing didn't fully hide a well-developed set of muscles. Nor did it hide the neatly-stitched scar on his face.

"I'm Stein," he agreed cheerfully. "And it wasn't tough at all. One kid warned me about you, and I turned down Jack's offer, but some demon kid gave me a ride."

He pushed his glasses up a little with his finger and gave Birkin a penetrating look that the man could actually feel. It felt like Stein was looking straight through his clothing, though Stein's smile didn't waver.

"Now, you looked like you were in a hurry somewhere."

While slightly unnerved by Stein's stare, Birkin ignored the feeling and instead raised a questioning eyebrow at the scar that ran under his eye. "I was just trying to find some anesthesia. I figured you'd want to take a close look at one of the more interesting creatures that exist in this world." He began walking past Stein to one of the labs that might actually have it. "If it wasn't so strong I wouldn't bother but," he glanced at Stein's tight turtleneck, noting the visible muscle definition, "I wouldn't want you to get hurt." Anymore than he already clearly was, at least.

Birkin walked into the lab and started rifling though a cabinet, finally finding a dusty bottle of anesthesia in the back. "Wesker never uses this, as I'm sure you can tell," he said, holding the offending bottle up slightly. "Shall we?" The scientist smiled pleasantly as he began walking back to where the Licker was currently contained.

Stein followed willingly - even eagerly - at the mention of a sample. "We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt," he agreed cheerfully.

His mood was improving by the minute. Not only did Birkin have something fun to play with, but he was already feeling clearer, mentally, from the few minutes outside of the madness wave.

"After you," he said to Birkin's invitation, walking with him down the hall. "So what do you have for me?" he added curiously, scarcely able to wait until he could see the thing before beginning to ask questions.

"It's called a Licker. You'll probably notice its slightly exposed brain and heart first or maybe its lack of skin and eyes; one of those two is always what people seem to see. And, if you're unlucky, its elongated tongue second. Or last, as the case usually is." Birkin had seen a fair share of people get stabbed or decapitated by those tongues and it was just as fascinating and horrific as when he first saw it happen.

Birkin swiped a keycard to get into his personal lab, wincing when the reader beeped. "You're going to need to be extremely quiet; its hearing is very sensitive and I don't want it to get too agitated if I can avoid it," he whispered. The scientist opened the door, preparing the anesthetic as quickly and quietly as he could, wincing slightly at any sound that seemed too loud.

The creature started thrashing its massive claws when Birkin got a bit too close to it. Luckily it didn't thrash hard enough to break the bonds that were currently holding it down. He jabbed his syringe into its leg, injecting the liquid. He sighed in relief once it looked like it had passed out. "They usually travel in packs so you can imagine how hard it was to just get the one." Birkin spoke louder this time, testing to make sure it was actually out. He let himself smile at it, like a father checking on his sleeping child. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Stein hung back, not out of fear, but to allow Birkin to work without his unwitting interference. Birkin was the master here, after all - he knew the creature's capabilities, and how to keep it incapacitated.

Besides, it let him take in its horrific beauty all at once, as it were. A panoramic view.

Only when Birkin had injected the sedative and the Licker grew quiescent did he enter the room and move up to stand beside the other man. He did indeed see its exposed organs, and the lack of skin. He saw the claws, and the tongue as it lolled out of its grotesque mouth.

"Beautiful," he agreed wholeheartedly. He gave the creature one of his penetrating looks, reaching up to rotate the bolt sticking out of his head as he fished out a cigarette with the other and stuck it in his mouth. The bolt clanked a little as it turned, then seemed to click into place.

He could see Birkin's attachment to it in their souls, and he offered the man a smile. "Did you create it?"

"In a sense, yes." Birkin waved a hand dismissively. "I created the raw materials to make these; evolution took care of the rest." He scoffed to himself; Jack Frost would have to freeze hell over before he ever admitted that TriCell jumped in and helped that evolution along.

Birkin focused his attention on Stein as he rotated the bolt. "Do you do that often?" He had to admit, watching that was one of those things that made the hairs on your neck stand on end. The sound it made, certainly didn't help. "I think there's a lighter in one of those drawers over there." He pointed toward a desk in the corner. "If you need one."

The scientist walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a shotgun. "Best to be prepared for anything," he mumbled as he placed it close at hand just in case. "Because anything can certainly happen..."

Stein shook his head. He'd already fished a lighter out of his own pocket, and he lit up with the soft sigh of a confirmed nicotine addict.

"It helps me think," he said softly, tapping the bolt with a fingertip and smiling once more. "Now then..."

He eyed the shotgun, then moved to the creature's head, his fingers dancing clinically over the head, opening the jaw to examine the tongue and razor-sharp teeth. "Don't sell yourself short, Will," he said. "You're proud as the father of an honour student. What do you mean by raw materials?"

'Will' chuckled. "Observant, aren't you?" He walked across the room to a silver briefcase. He opened it, extracting a test tube full of a green liquid. "This is the T-virus," Birkin said, holding it up and smiling. "When a human is infected with it, they become what are essentially zombies. Eventually, given the right circumstances, they'll turn into one of those." He pointed at the Licker.

Birkin took a sip from a half-full coffee mug that was lying next to the case with his free hand, before shutting it tightly and walking back to the examination table.

He held out the vial to Stein. "You can keep it and give it to your bad students if you want; we have plenty. Besides, it's not terribly hard to make more." Especially considering they were in the right area in Africa to find the 'ingredients'.

Stein looked at the liquid inside thoughtfully. He'd have to be careful with it, of course, but it was something he could use. He had an idea that might help deal with his Medusa problem.

"Thanks, maybe I will. When you mention zombies, what do you mean?" he asked, slipping the vial into his pocket. "How many of their faculties do they maintain from life?" He cocked his head. "And how dangerous is this virus? Is it transmitted through the air? Touch? Blood to blood transfer?"

He didn't want to take that vial home if it was going to touch off a zombie invasion in his own backyard. Birkin's backyard was fine.

"They're not exactly the undead, their skin has just suffered severe necrosis so they just look like they are. Zombie is more of a nickname; their official name is T-carrier." Birkin smirked as he notice Stein taking it with him. "They lose most of their higher brain power and are mostly driven by instinct. They're still technically living, just not as well as before."

He considered this for a moment. "It's hard to say exactly how dangerous in and of itself; it has a 95% infection rate total, but zombies like to bite so that's mostly the reason its so contagious. To infect someone, you could either contaminate the water supply, or simply infect one person with it and let them do the rest..." Birkin narrowed his eyes for a moment. "Although, if you inject the virus directly into someone, they won't become a zombie. They'll become a Tyrant. It's a more effective weapon, but if you're after a pandemic, it's best to settle for zombies; Tyrants can't infect anything naturally."

Birkin laughed. "And you can touch them all you want without worrying. This isn't Ebola; I've touched them thousands of times throughout my life and nothing's happened yet. A bite or a scratch is usually what you need to worry about. And don't assume that humans are the only ones susceptible. All sorts of animals - even plants - can be infected. Usually that just involves a massive increase in size but... They make fairly effective B.O.W.s, all things considered."

"Hmm... so this isn't helpful for bringing the dead back to life?" he asked with a faint tone of disappointment. He shifted around, examining the brain for signs of damage. Exposed like that, one would think it would be killed quickly, but it seemed it was vicious enough to protect its own organs from lethal damage.

He glanced up. "I can't say I'm looking to touch off a pandemic, Birkin, though I'm curious about Tyrants. Is that what you're doing here? Developing biological weapons?"

"I wouldn't know; we've actually never tested it. It could. It does reanimate dead tissue, but usually the rest of the host is living so it's hard to say. You can always see for yourself," Birkin said with a smirk. That was, of course, not counting Wesker. But he was a rather special case with a rather special strand of the virus.

He shrugged. "Here, we're looking to 'touch off a pandemic'. Back when I worked for Umbrella instead of Wesker, though... He and I were the two top researchers of that particular department. That's how we met." He looked wistfully at the Licker for a moment, before turning back to look at Stein. "And the rest, as they say, is history. So what do you want to do with that virus, if that's not it?"

As Stein listened to Birkin's explanation he finished his examination of the creature's head then straightened up and wiped the fluid from his hands onto his labcoat before he pushed his glasses up with one finger. He took the cigarette from between his lips and blew a cloud of smoke.

"I'm thinking about creating a new body out of dead parts," he said thoughtfully. "A present for an enemy whose body I destroyed. It could save a little girl's life." He glanced sidelong at Birkin with a smirk. "Medusa is possessing a little girl's body, since I sliced her body in half. I might be able to tempt her into an adult body if it were comfortable and pretty enough. But right now the zombies I can create still look cold and corpselike."

He shrugged. "Right now I'm just open to anything that might help. Besides, I'm curious about the virus in general." He cocked his head. "Why start a pandemic?"

"As 'pretty' as I think my creations are, not many others tend to agree," Birkin said with a sigh. "Unless Medusa wants to look something like that," he pointed to the Licker, "I doubt I can help. I can create Tyrants that look slightly more human but they're still too pale and too large to actually be human." He rolled his eyes. "And they lose most of their brain function which I doubt she'd like."

Birkin returned the shrug. "Why not start a pandemic? You can weed out the weak parts of the species and continue on with the strongest still alive."

Stein cocked his head. "I'm not sure brain function matters. She's in a child's body, and a child's brain isn't fully developed, and is still herself. She's even managed to make the child look like her. But I don't think she'd want to inhabit something like that." He gestured towards the Licker.

His eyebrows rose faintly at Birkin's explanation, not quite sure how to take that. He'd never had genocidal tendencies. Personally, he preferred to be left alone to do his work, not change the world in drastic ways.

"I guess you're confident in your own strength," he said, his lips pulling sideways into a smirk.

"You sure? That thing used to drive my wife crazy," Birkin said with a soft snicker.

He shrugged. "It's more Wesker's strength than mine. He's the one with the shot at godhood; I'm just along for the ride, usually." Birkin gently slid his finger along the Licker's tongue. "If you want we can take a look at its taste buds. They're something else. - I don't really mind being Wesker's right-hand-man though. It has its perks."

"So Wesker wants to cleanse the world, and you're just hoping to be in the 'Too useful to cleanse' camp?" Stein asked, his tone a bit careful.

He leaned closer, reaching gently to unfurl the tongue and get a closer look, keeping his fingers away from the tongue. "What thing used to drive your wife crazy?"

Birkin laughed nervously. Okay, yeah, that was pretty much the long and short of it but... "He and I have known each other for years and years. Wesker would never hurt me. Plus, he needs my help with things; I'm smarter than he is, I'll have you know."

He smirked and pointed at the Licker. He hadn't actually meant for it to sound as bad as it did, but he was willing to roll with it. For now.

Stein glanced at Birkin sidelong, though he didn't take his eyes off of the creature. He wasn't planning on treating it cavalierly. Birkin might be like him, but that only meant he probably wasn't trustworthy. It was possible this was some kind of trap, and he didn't want to get bitten either out of carelessness or treachery.

"Well, if you were on my world I'd probably have to snap your neck for that," he said thoughtfully, running his fingers over the taste buds. "But it's not my world. Not my problem."

He frowned faintly. "What happened to your wife?"

Birkin gulped audibly. That was not the sort of thing he liked to hear from people while he didn't have anyone else near-by. "Well. Good?" There really wasn't a response to that as far as he could tell. "Uh. Hand me a scalpel, would you? To really get the full effect, you need to see them up close..." He was mumbling now, anything to stop thinking about Stein snapping his neck was a good enough thing for him to say.

He sighed. "She died. Because of a lab accident." Hey, it was part of the truth.

Stein smiled faintly at the response and drew back from the Licker. He picked up a scalpel from a nearby table and handed it over. "Don't worry," he said, trying to reassure the man. "Like I said, it's not my problem. I won't interfere."

He sobered. "I'm sorry to hear that." It was the thing to say, after all.

He reached for the scalpel and sighed. "There's a difference between 'not interfering' and still considering me a friend. I wouldn't have told you that if I didn't trust you." Birkin drew the blade out of Stein's hand and bent over the Licker to cut off a small piece of its tongue.

"Thanks. It was really her own fault though. Shouldn't have tried to shoot the damn thing..." Even if 'the damn thing' was him, that was how he felt. "How about you? Ever been married?"

'Friend'? 'Trust'?

Stein glanced at Birkin askance, considering that. "The information doesn't change how I see you, Birkin," he said honestly. "Don't worry about that."

The callous reply was more in line with what Stein might have expected, and he relaxed slightly. "No, never really bothered with intimate relationships," he said with a shrug. "I had a long-term partnership once, lasted about five years, but then he got married."

Birkin smiled slightly at that. God knows he needed a friend who wasn't Wesker or Vanessa and who didn't think he was a complete monster.

"What a dick," he blurted out. "I-I mean! I'm sure he was a great guy but that was kinda..." He shrugged one shoulder slightly, worried expression on his face. "Dickish." Birkin glanced at the ground. "Though I guess I shouldn't talk. That's pretty much what happened when I got married. My wife wasn't much of a fan of Wesker so - Or did you mean a 'partner' sort of partnership? Because Wesker and I haven't - and I'm not - a-and... Ugh, nevermind, I don't want to know." Birkin had now settled into a lovely shade of red and decided that it was time to shut up now and take the bit of tongue that he'd cut off over to a microscope before he said something really retarded.

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