Thread: Lost Kitten (SexyXWolf)

Hiko hurried to turn off the boiling water in his sprawling flat. He reached for the handle of the kettle, but then had to pull back when it burned him. Ow! he exclaimed, taking the kettle off with a mitt instead and pouring his tea. He put a tea ball in to steep and sat down at the paper-strewn kitchen table. Hiko was a flustered-looking man in his mid to late twenties. Dark marks under his eyes indicated that he hadn't been sleeping much lately. He wore a wrinkled white dress shirt with a black skinny tie, although the tie was so loose around his neck that he might as well have not been wearing it. The only neat thing about him were his pressed black pants, which were only so crisp because he'd told himself he needed a moment to decompress and when he was stressed, he ironed. He didn't know why, but it relaxed him to press the wrinkles out of his clothes. Just as he had decided the tea had steeped long enough, a ping from his computer let him know that the program he had run was complete. He put his tea down presently and hurried over to his computer, sliding the last few feet in his socks across the polished mahogany floor. He fell into the gnarled desk chair and ran his fingers through his unkempt black hair. He reached for his glasses, but couldn't find them. His impatience got the best of him and he began clicking through window and window of alignments and graphs. He flipped through his lab notebook, scribbling numbers and thoughts as he examined the latest scan. This was the latest and possibly the greatest of his analyses of InvCV. The virus affecting H.Feles, or Cat People more colloquially, had swept the sub-species population like the black plague had the human population, and Hiko was determined to stop it. Finally, a digital representation, consisting of spirals and arrows popped up on the screen. Hiko squinted at it. No... he trailed off. His far-fetched reasoning was finally made probable before his eyes. The portion of the protein he was looking at was from InvCV. This final piece of information confirmed that the virus that caused InvCV could bind to a human cell, triggering a change that would then allow it to become virulent to the cat people. In other words, the virus was harmless until it entered a human, changed, and then was passed on to a cat. Once the cat person got it from a human, it would be able to wreak havoc in their system. What's more, Hiko was sure that if he could block this protein from binding to human cells in the first place, it would solve everything. What's more, if he could disrupt the function of that protein, it would stop being virulent inside already infected patients. He pushed his chair back and tightened his tie as he searched for shoes. He covered his face with an industry-grade mask and put on nitrile gloves as he entered the only portion of his house that was neat his lab. He reached into the -20 freezer and selected a specialized protease labeled D-67. He slid the small vial into his pocket to thaw and hurried out the door. He walked at a brisk pace, muttering numbers and letters under his breath to himself as he searched for a cat person to test this on. Normally he wouldn't try to solicit a patient at random, but he figured that the worst he could do was give them something that would kill them and if he didn't do anything, they were going to die anyway. It would probably be a lot quicker of a death if he messed something up with his hypotheses anyway. Everywhere the sweltering heat did no good to the feline forms laid out over railings, collapsed inside of cars or wandering the streets. He had to find a patient that was obviously, not dead yet and also not delusional, so he could obtain legal consent from them. He wished there were some way he could test this treatment in the lab, but the virus had to be stopped in vivo. Then he spotted her, a young catgirl sitting under a tree in the park a block or two away from his flat. He hurried across the street, shouting obscenities back at the driver who honked and swore at him. He knelt down by her, waving is hand and shining a pocket light in her eyes to see if she was responsive. Hello? he muttered. Can you hear me? He made sure his mask was tight over his face. It wasn't that he was scared of being infected. InvCV didn't affect humans. However, with his new knowledge, he knew that he could potentially make her and others a lot more sick if he became a carrier for the disease. He could make it deadly whether he wanted to or not. He propped her up more against the tree. I want to help you. Will you let me?