Lab Work


Mason turned on the fluorescent spotlight and trained it on her preparation work. Culturing
cells was tricky, but mechanical - she'd done it countless times in her lab assistant position in
college. But these weren't just any cells, they were of a kind most biologists would deny the
very existence of. That was a whole long story in itself, that she mulled over briefly before
continuing. 

Mason put this culture into the incubator; the previously prepared one was in a refrigerated
environment. She wanted to see if the heat level had any effect on its growth. Normal cells
would; these would not. 

She took two of the batches from yesterday and dropped blood from an eyedropper into the
preparation. The other got no blood, just the same amount of saline. She thought she might try
plasma solution in a similar batch, so she took out a third and fourth. The fourth one she took a
sample from and placed it under a microscope. 

Ooooh... the cells were very lively. This batch had been given human blood when cultured, but
nothing since. She put some ice under them and looked again - still very lively even in the cold.
She thought of trying some light and heat tests next... shone reflected sunshine from the
window onto the culture with a mirror. She watched in awe as the cells immediately blackened
and turned to smoke and ash. 

Mason swallowed. This was amazing. Really amazing stuff. She thought she'd get to the
chemical composition next and see if she could isolate what made that happen. No wonder
they had such fear of fire and sunlight. She thought of Miss Semingsworth's description of
Rotschreck and shivered as she put her equipment away til next time.