InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "namaste and blessed be!"

Winifred "Fred" Burkle (i_figure) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2011-06-24 16:55:00

Entry tags:

fight club, hannibal lecter, winifred burkle

Big Brains, Mysteries and Wonders (Hannibal, Fight Club Challenge)
Fred was feeling different lately. Oh, she'd been having very interesting dreams, and she'd been allowed to work on some very high tech equipment. She was helping, but she'd felt..different recently. It wasn't a good or bad different, although she did feel a craving. It was one of those cravings she couldn't quite figure out for what exactly she was craving. She couldn't name it, and if she could just name it, maybe then she'd be able to get back to feeling normal. Not that she really considered herself all that normal.

As if the City felt a need to help her out, or give her yet another distraction, she received an invitation from the City Institute. They were thinking of holding a panel for the leading scientists and thinkers on the interplay between science and magic or supernatural. The invitation was to a private meeting, and she guessed it was part of whatever was going on to find answers about the City. The Institute was starting to wonder? Maybe it was someone who was part of that meeting? There'd been flyers, she was pretty sure of that.

She knew she should probably sit at the computers and do more work, but the programs she had running, which didn't seem to be giving her more information than she'd already provided, were working well enough on their own. She wasn't needed.

Fred dressed in her more scholarly gear, even the glasses not that she always needed them much lately, and headed out to the Institute. She'd found the small conference room that looked set up for a small round table discussion, or debate; it even had snacks: small sandwiches, chips, crackers, pastries, juice, water, soda. It didn't look like a lot of food, but she'd guess at least five or six were expected. Scholars, thinkers, did like the free food and usually tried to sneak some home.

Fred Burkle settled down in a semi-plush swiveling rolly chair and waited. She didn't want to touch the snacks until others were there. It seemed more polite. She was a little excited; it'd been a while since she'd gotten to have an in-depth conversation of this kind.

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i_consume
2011-06-26 05:12 am UTC (link)

"An accident." He nodded. "We didn't have more security, because before the moment with the idiot nurse, we hadn't left the monkey unattended. Doctor Tam, or I, or both, were with the beast at all times of the day. The nurse was the first person who happened by when our emergency arose. If she'd been competent, none of this would have happened. There was nothing she was needed for." Hannibal eyed the girl. "The monkey did not need wards. It was not itself inherently magical. It was in a cage, and it was not the monkey that spread the disease. Nobody tampered with the monkey itself. They took the formula which I had created. Managing, amazingly, to pick up the disease and not the cure."

Hannibal didn't know if there was a CDC here in the City. It would make sense if there was. But he did know that his entire hospital was run under the strictest of guidelines. He himself did not step out of safe practices. He knew procedure for experimentation and followed it. Otherwise things weren't scientific, they were just games.

"The cure obliterated the disease itself. Upon contact, the disease was gone. I ran many tests on it. I was planning on using it to cure the monkey with the intention of returning the animal to the pirate so he could kill it with finality. Which sadly never got to happen."

He didn't mind Fred's questions, but he did mind the implication that he was not conforming to the regulations he should have been.

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i_figure
2011-06-26 05:23 am UTC (link)

"A nurse's incompetence should not have been all that stood between the world and a zombie apocalypse. There should have been redundancy built into the facilities to combat any type of outside interference." Most people would know not to say things that could be taken as insults or worse when they were talking to a man who was known for his cruelty. Of course, Fred would always come back time and again to the age factor. Yes, he could be just as dark and twisted as his later self, but there was always a possibility. Though, his apparent disappointment to the final result with the monkey was a little...disappointing itself.

"What has happened to the monkey?" The question was asked with curiosity but somehow without the disappointment. "Did you release it?"

"Do you want something to drink?" For all her feelings about the experiment in question, she didn't seem to dislike him or feel badly toward him. She did question his choice in facilities; something about it just didn't sit right.

She stood and made her way over to the drinks that were waiting for them. "Too many for just us two. They were definitely expecting more than one. What other diseases did you discover and cure? Or was reanimation the only one? Did you save any of samples of the disease, have you examined it recently? I'm curious to know if it has any other attributes?"

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i_consume
2011-06-26 06:10 am UTC (link)

"It wasn't the only thing." Hannibal said, perhaps forcefully. It might take a trained ear to hear it, but it was there. "The experimentation was occurring in a place that was not accessible to the public. The nurse was stationed as a safeguard. Not that she should have left her position for any reason. People can still be on that floor, but it would have normally been the staff. Qualified and responsible people. Somehow, somebody got past all of the security that's in place in the building and got to our experiment."

Hannibal was glad to get off of the subject of the security and his presumed mistake. Hannibal did not make mistakes. Though Fred was making one at the moment. He was hoping she would get the gist of that through his tone.

"The monkey was not there when I returned from the asylum." Almost everybody had been inside, he now knew. Mostly faces who had been here before that time were the ones who had found themselves locked away in an insane asylum. "It was just vanished. Cage and all. No trace of anything we had done except for the journals. And, of course, the memories of the people who endured it. The pirate was gone, as well. So even if the monkey had remained, my original intent would not be able to be completed."

His estimation of Fred went up with her offer of a drink. It was polite. It was friendly. "Yes, please. Water."

Hannibal turned his mind back. "The syringe containing the completed formula was singular. The man who thought it was a drug and injected it into himself got the only sample. It will not resurface." He was very confident of that. "There were no other layers of it. It was simply reanimation of the deceased. I did not construct it to be more complex."

He thought of the experiments that he and Simon had done. "We injected the monkey with already cured diseases first, to see if it could even be done with this creature. There was always the chance that because of it's cursed physiology that it wouldn't take the disease to begin with, or perhaps it would absorb what we had given it, making it sick, and not be able to administer the cure. Or perhaps it would be a carrier. Digesting the things we injected it with and not showing symptoms, but still being able to infect." He gave a little one shouldered shrug. "Obviously, we were quite capable of infecting and curing it. We never got around to bigger experiments. Trying to see if we could cure something out there that has yet to be cured."

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i_figure
2011-06-26 07:34 pm UTC (link)

Fred believed good science came from making mistakes; great science came from mistakes that did little damage when they happened. People rarely learned and imagined and adapted when things were perfect. The zombie outbreak was a mistake, and it would be traced to everyone involved. Or so she believed. But, he dint' seem to like the idea of discussing this, so she moved on. Yes, Fred was capable of picking up some social cues.

"That's a little disappointing. Not that the monkey vanished; I understand the need for testing, but I can't always reconcile the two - the information we can discover and testing on animals who cannot give consent. What's disappointing is that there is nothing left. Glad that we dont' have to worry about that coming back, unless you feel you can synthesize it." She didn't sound hopeful. She was thinking out loud. She found two waters: one ice cold, the other simply cool.

"Cold or cool? I know some people don't like really cold drinks. I'm not partial to either. Water's water when you only have one good source." Fred shrugged setting the two bottles between them.

"I see. Blood samples gone, too? Was it simply a virus in the monkey, was it some sort of carrier, even if it did go all undead like, you said that it did, right? Or was it part of its genetic coding? If it was, were you able to find the gene? Or chromosome? Did it adhere to a particular one, was it a mutation? Where?" Fred's mind was full of questions now. Her eyes were wide as she was certainly excited to know.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone really liked the zombie apocalypse. A few friends of mine were seriously hurt. But, the science behind it, the fact that it was indeed science, can't be ignored. Science that came from a magical origin. It's..as Spock would say...fascinating. Or fantastic, or brilliant, think the Doctor says that. Or one of them does." She smiled brightly.

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i_consume
2011-06-28 02:51 am UTC (link)

Hannibal took the cold water, taking a sip from it before putting it back down. He caught Fred's moment of saying she essentially didn't all the way agree with animal testing, and decided that she would be really uncomfortable with the other things that happened in his life. Not that he would tell her. But there was a possibility that she could find out on her own. Perhaps a chance that she might discover it intimately, though her brain's power and the fact she'd stopped antagonizing him were working to lessen that chance.

"Everything." Hannibal nodded. "All testing implements, all saved samples, the cure, all of it was gone. Why the notebooks were left, I cannot say. I can only hazard a guess that The City didn't realize what was inside of them, or didn't think that they could be used for anything other than occasional reading. Or perhaps it somehow just did not realize they were there. After all, I kept them separately from the rest, as they contained not just the science, but my own views and deductions. A man does like to have his secrets. Doctor Tam was the only other person I allowed to see them. I believe they might have notes of his as well."

He took another drink of the water, this one long and calculated, to study Fred a little further while she was being silent. Giving himself a moment to appreciate her questions and the way that she worked. It seemed that she was pure science, whereas he was looking at things through a mostly medical eye. Not completely, of course, but his interest mainly lay in that aspect.

"It was a mutation." He said, putting the water down. "Quite apart from genes and chromosomes. Very easy to isolate. It attached itself to things, but for the most part was free floating. When the moonlight did not shine upon the monkey, the mutation kept itself apart from everything. Dormant. But the moment the moon was introduced, the mutation attached itself to whatever was closest. Almost like a puzzle that could be put together any way that one saw fit. It coated everything. Very strange to watch."

Hannibal had an entire room in his mind palace dedicated to the monkey and the research that had been done with it. The room was filled. Photographs, diagrams, charts, drawings, all filled the walls. There were files and papers containing everything that he had witnessed and done. Every little movement. Every single thing that he'd seen in the microscope was kept on a slide in one of the drawers in a special dresser he had constructed so that they would fit and line up in order. Any of it he could reach at any time he wanted. Easily.

He gave a little smile, and said coyly: "I could synthesize it."

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i_figure
2011-06-28 04:03 am UTC (link)

Fred listened carefully. People thought Fred gave up when she let something go by the way, when she seemed to stop fighting. But, her mind was always working. She'd have to find his "lab" because surely they had a lab they were working in, not some room somewhere. She'd find it and decide for herself if every precaution had been taken. Then she'd find the CDC, if there was one. Or some sort of compliance board. That could be done easily enough.

She took the other bottle of water, opening it. She listened to the plastic break and pop. It was a sound she was glad to hear. It meant no one else had been bothering the drinks; of course, there were ways around such precautions, but she didn't think anyone would go that far. This still could be a trap.

"I see. A free radical in the blood that you were able to isolate and reproduce? Or did you isolate only for the zombie outbreak?" Her fingers were working at the label. "The City took everything but your notebooks? The City lets you experiment? It lets you do who knows what to whatever? Do you think it wanted the zombies? It's not like you're trying to actually solve the City, so may that's why it lets you do what you want." Now and then, the connection between her mouth and her brain didn't always go through the proper filter.

"You work with the City in some fashion, creating viruses and harmful material in an environment that is possibly compromised by the City, again marking that it is something it wants. This is why you've not met with any standards boards, probably. If you had, you'd know if there was a CDC. Or compliance board. I have to wait for a child to get kidnapped to get access to anything more complicated than pager. What makes you so special? And don't give me that you're smarter than I am or more liked. You're Hannibal Lecter; you probably know by now who you are to other people, even if you aren't that person yet. It doesn't exactly come with a happy go lucky charm to it. Or maybe it does, Hopkins wasn't always a dour depressed guy in that, was he? And, you could have more knowledge in some fields than I do, but I don't think you're smarter than I am. Which sounds a little conceited, but I know I am a freaking genius. Crazy maybe, but a genius." Fred was definitely not happy with the City at the moment.

"I'm sorry, but this really chaps my hide." Her Texan accent was thick by the time she'd gotten to this point.

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i_consume
2011-06-29 11:03 pm UTC (link)

"Only the undead portion of it was isolated." Hannibal said, his voice cold. He had not intended for the zombie outbreak to happen. She needed to understand that. "Removed from it's curse attributes, which had a very distinctive look to them under the microscope, interestingly."

Then she started to get angry. He couldn't be sure if it was truly anger directed at him, or if she was just upset in general and he was getting the brunt of it. If he was just a convenient mark for her arrow. Either way, he was not appreciative of it. Not in the least.

"I have had no trouble with anything I have done within the City's walls." It was said with arrogance. Perhaps he was trying to goad her in return for her misplaced ire. "I know very well who I am to other people, and I cannot say that I particularly care what they think of me. I am who I am, and I happen to like it. Perhaps your question should not be what makes me so special, but rather, what makes you so otherwise? The City has deprived you of something you so obviously want. Have you done something to raise it's dislike of you? Surely there must be something wrong about you in general for it to keep this thing from your grasp."

Hannibal's own anger was rising, though he was doing his best to not let it come too far. Should he become extremely perturbed with this young lady, he might forget that he enjoyed her brain and that she was polite. He might not care at all about those factors. He might just decide that her brain would do him better as the main course at his next meal.

"It sounds as if you're insulting me, Fred. You know very little about my mind and the way it works. You cannot sit there and tell me you are sure that I am not smarter than you are. You do not know my past or my achievements. I'm sure you could find out quite easily, as all of my books are in the library. But it's quite clear you have had little to no exposure to them, as you've brought up Anthony Hopkins. I'm going to hazard a guess that it's Silence Of The Lambs that you've seen and not the others. Not much detail is given to my prowess in that film. They glance over it, yes. But it would do you a good turn to not sit but two feet from me and insult my intelligence."

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i_figure
2011-06-30 12:19 am UTC (link)

"Only the undead portion." Fred repeated softly. She was thinking; her mind processed the information, putting it away for further questions. But, what he said next interrupted anything she was about to ask. She actually looked shocked at what he said.

"That is one possibility, that I am not special like you are, or it means you are exactly what the City wants and you play into its hands, or mind, or wishes. Whatever the City has you're playing into it. You're doing exactly what it wants. I'm acting against what it wants, and therefore it doesn't want me to go any further. You could be one of the City's lackeys if that's the case because I certainly wouldn't want to be in the service of some place that lets zombie outbreaks or Godzillas or death funhouses take place whenever it so chooses. It doesn't matter how good of a facility you had, how hard you tried, it still wanted whatever it was you created to get out. You did it a good turn by making the zombie virus." Fred looked at him. Now if she were insulting him, that would be an insult in her book.

"You're right, I don't know much about you. I know you're intelligent. Dangerously so, if I remember the movie right. I haven't read the books, nor have I watched anything else, if there is anything else. Didn't know there were even books. What I am going by is what I know of you right here. You're smart. Very smart. I didn't say I was smarter than you. I said I don't think you are smarter than me; you could be, but I don't think so. You do know stuff I don't, and same with me for you." Fred wasn't backing down. And she didn't sound as if she were winding down in speech just yet.

"I don't wish to read the books because you aren't the man in the movie. Obviously, you're much younger. And you may not be the man in the books. You may not have the same concepts as I do about science and experimentation, which it's hard to judge who is and isn't bad when it comes to that. You are a singular entity that is brand new as you are not in the timelines as shown in book or movie, even if you are from a particular time in a book that is completed. As you have a new environment, you become new. You have new possibilities, so you can be similar to but never exactly that person." Just as she would never be the Fred who ended up Illyria, if she had anything to say about it. She wasn't the scared little thing either. She was a brilliant woman who was staring into the eyes of a man who would become one of the FBI's most hated and feared criminals.

"Why are your eyes red?" Okay, so that was a bit of a nonsequiter. "Is it congenital? Or did it develop later?"

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i_consume
2011-06-30 04:12 am UTC (link)

"I am no lackey." Hannibal said, stiff. "I haven't worked for or against the City in any way. I have done what I wanted to do. Merely, I have accepted my place here. I discovered early that there is no way out, thus making it unnecessary to attempt to find a way. Perhaps that is it, then. Perhaps you have spent your time trying to find a way home rather than just living your life. In that way you may have stunted yourself, both mentally and in the ways that the City allows you to do things."

Hannibal sat back in the chair, his left hand wrapped around the bottle of water. "I am in service to nobody, certainly not a faceless entity. I acknowledge that it exists, that it thinks, but it is no master. At least, not to me. Obviously it is to you, since it does not allow you to play with your computers the way that you wish. You said that you have only a pager. Which means you do not even have one of the phones that it has supplied every other being here. Perhaps if you just lived your life and went about the routines that you would normally, it would give you such things."

His words, and his voice, were unkind when he said these things. But it showed not at all in his face. Perhaps in his eyes.

His lip twitched in the ghost of a very unkind smile. She was unaware that he at this age, actually younger, since he had been here a few years, had his very own book, and that in said book - and in his life before the City - he'd done some very very bad things.

"Already I am on a path to be a greater mind than the man that I should have become." Hannibal said. "I have already done much that he never did do. Yes, I'm quite aware that I will never be exactly him, but it is foolish to think that he is not me. Already our experiences have paralleled, though I am here instead of Earth. Which is not the point. The point I was making was not that you should read the books or watch the other three movies, but that you have not. And since you have not, you should not presume to know my intelligence." Due to the concessions made, his tone was more observatory this time in this part of the discussion.

But he did find himself perturbed again. "My eye color is not a disease."

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i_figure
2011-06-30 04:29 am UTC (link)

"If I were fighting to get home, I'd agree with you. I'm not. I just want to understand how the City works. What's the science behind it? It can't be just magic. I want to understand. The City doesn't want to be understood. But, it is one of the biggest mysteries we have around us; it begs to be discovered." Fred wasn't bothered by the possible insult; it simply wasn't true.

"I know what happens to me happens to me if I go back. It will not change. So, why do I want to go back if that life has been lived? We cannot change those established time lines because they have already happened whether we have lived them or not." She looked at him, again confident, but as he continued, there was a chill. She didn't like what he was saying. There was something about it...Her chin lifted slightly, maybe a tell that he had bothered her a bit. Not insulted, but bothered her. It was a creeping suspicion of a bothered that could become fear. She was determined to not let it.

"'Congenital' is from birth, usually used in relation to diseases or something not at all pleasant. It does not always mean so. I simply meant have you always had that eye color. You'd think that would be something I'd notice from the movie, but I didn't. I remember the sound he made and the way they had him bound." She shifted a little. He wanted to be greater than that man, a greater mind? A mind that liked to dine on other minds? Bothered.

"Why do you take insult in being told that you are probably not smarter than I am? Is it that I am a woman, is it that I do often times sound like I'm a little addled, is it that I sound like a bit of a hick, or is it simply that you are so arrogant that you couldn't possibly conceive of someone being as smart as you?" Fred's lips pulled slightly as she stood. "This isn't what we came here to discuss. It's my fault we got off on this tangent, but who put us here? Well, we put ourselves here, but why was this meeting called? The general why not the specific why, but not the why are we here here as in philosophy why either."

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i_consume
2011-06-30 06:48 am UTC (link)

"Ah." Hannibal said, understanding. Still unkind. She was trying to understand the very thing that was keeping her from her things, she was trying to poke into a thing that didn't want to be poked. He and Baba Yaga had done something similar, but not in the same way. They had killed the City's children. They had not tried to find out what the City wanted, how it worked. But he said nothing. She was foolish for what she wanted, and his one word would convey his feelings perfectly.

"My eye color is inherited from my mother." Hannibal said. He had, and still, took it as a slight because even he wouldn't have used such a word in such a question. The meaning had become overwhelmingly medical, even in his time. "From what I understand of movies, it was too costly and too much work to portray my eye color and my hand," he held it up. He knew she had seen it, but he showed it again anyway. "so they did not. Again, returning to the books, it's all there. While Sir Anthony Hopkins did an excellent job at portraying the older me, I have personal feelings on how they changed the story. There were things that I would never have done, but as you haven't seen my main complaint, I won't spoil it for you."

The cutting off of his own hand irked him in a way he just couldn't get over. Not even for Clarice Starling, who he understood completely upon reading, and understood the way that the older him would want her, not even for her would he cut off an appendage. Not even for River. A girl whom he loved now. Treasured, now. Should he find himself bound with her, he would find another way out. His hands were far too useful, too intricate as tools and weapons, to remove. No.

"It has nothing to do with you being a woman. Or being a hick. And it has nothing at all to do with the possibility that you could be smarter than I. I'm well aware of the occurrence. It's not a maybe." Hannibal's eyes became cold. "Rather, it's the disgust in your face, the anger in your eyes, when you say such things. That you think it impossible for somebody else to surpass your intelligence. It burns in you, this need to be the best at something. Your mind is quite capable, I cannot deny it and would not. But it's the only thing that you have, isn't it? You are no spectacular beauty, you are not a brave and gallant soul. I'm guessing by your physique that you are not a skilled fighter. So there is only your mind. Your brilliant and well developed mind. It's possible you're not aware of how you feel, that you did not realize the look that you gave. You are not in control of your emotions in the least, so I'm willing to believe this. But you cling to that brain of yours. You fear losing it. You fear discovering that it's not all you think it is. You need to be the smartest person you know."

As for the rest: "I am here because I was sent an invitation. Since it said The City Institute on it and not a specific name, I realized from the first that it was from the City itself. Did you not? Did you really assume that some individual had sent these out for us? The City wanted us here. The fact that nobody else has arrived merely shows that the City wanted the two of us alone in the same room. For what purpose? Who can say. Perhaps for us to speak and get to know one another. Become colleagues. Perhaps for us to argue and become bitter enemies. Perhaps it was hoping that I would end your life and thus remove the efforts it must take in order to keep anything fancier than a beeper from your hands."

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i_figure
2011-06-30 07:11 am UTC (link)

Fred listened. Her lips thinning as he insulted her, and maybe he was right the way she'd said it wasn't nice. But, that didn't make it any less hurtful when he decided to follow it with pointing out exactly those things she knew were her faults. She was no beauty queen, nor was she some champion. She was Fred, plain ole Fred. Or she had been. Yes, she needed to be smart. She needed to be the brain because she didn't have much else in the past, but he actually treated her as if she were stupid in that bit of deduction of his?

"If you're the kind of man who'd kill me because I pissed you off, if that's the man you are and want to be, I don't think the City would bring us together as colleagues, specially if it knows this about you." She didn't move away, not yet. "But, then, I'm not - despite right now - a very argumentative person. Maybe it thought I'd try to save you. Course, that's saying you wanna be saved, or feel you need to be saved."

Fred sighed and took a step away. "Would you like something to eat?" She turned back to grab her water bottle to get a sip, and just took it along with her. "The City's a little strange to put all this out if it knew it was just us. Why go to the trouble? It does like going to a lot more trouble than necessary. I know I can eat, but this is a bit much, isn't it?"

Bothered. Maybe she was quietly calling on Castiel, but she refused to look afraid. She ignored that tiny voice that told her to run. Running didn't always work; it wasn't always the best choice.

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i_consume
2011-06-30 07:28 am UTC (link)

"In my other future, I eat a flautist to improve the sound of the orchestra as a whole." Hannibal smiled at her. Letting it sink in what he'd said. The meaning behind it. Whether he was the kind of guy who would kill somebody for making him angry or not.

"I do not wish to be saved." Hannibal said simply. "As I stated, I'm rather fond of who I am. Does this mean that I plan to kill you? No. I've come to respect the way that your mind works, even if I have yet to come to respect you as a whole. Could we work together? I think so. Would it be without problems? Likely not." He thought of Simon. He and Simon had had many problems, and yet when they were working, amazing things happened. The same could occur with Fred.

Hannibal turned to look at the food. It was all snackish really. Nothing cooked. Pastries, chilled vegetables with dips, crackers and cheese, coldcuts. Nothing complicated. He stood to join her, standing close but not overcrowdingly so. He had a small desire in him to make her slightly uncomfortable, given the comments he'd made. Just a little bit.

"I'm guessing that it wanted us to think there were others coming. The City thinks, but not too deeply, I've realized. It makes initial plans, but has very little follow through. It did not reason for itself that between our two minds we would realize very quickly nobody else would be attending. It apparently thought the amount of food and drink would placate us indefinitely."

He filled a plate with some crackers and some cheese, but not before stooping a little to bring closer the aroma of what he was picking. His nose would have told him immediately if it had been spoiled or had anything added to it.

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i_figure
2011-06-30 07:41 am UTC (link)

"I didn't think you did." Fred paused as he came closer to her, her fingers twitched around the bottle she was holding. Thankfully it didn't crinkle too much from the tighter hold. She looked over the food.

"Like those stupid cupids." She grumped softly as she finally picked up a plate and found the pastries that actually looked edible. She did like her sweets. "Or the leprechaun, or making a queen?" She glanced at him, not at all liking how close he was. The plate in her hand didn't shake much, actually at all. She wasn't even sure how she could still think of eating when she knew what he ate. Her stomach really did have a mind of its own.

"Do you ever get curious? How it works?" She turned to look at him for a moment, which was probably not the best idea. It seemed to make her closer to him, which was not what she wanted. "It's testing us for something. If I were given to complete flights of fancy, I'd say it's trying to create a master race of some sort to take over the world, or to pick out the best bits of those not so real things to figure out how to defeat those things that made us. If we were made, but didn't exist outside that." She wasn't sure if she was making sense. It wasn't easy to explain what was in her head sometimes.

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