Chapter Four
By the time I was done all my exploratory cutting, Rasputin looked less like a cadaver, and more like one of those dissected frogs that you do in science class in high school. I covered his face with a separate cloth to get rid of the distinct feeling that he was judging me as I checked his internal workings out. I’d followed some of the scars and discovered that both hands and his arms up to the elbows, both feet and legs up to his knees and spine were clockwork. His bones above the joints had been coated with metal of an alloy that I hadn’t identified yet. I chipped away small fragments to analyze later. His other internal organs has be married with clockwork enhancements, but I wasn’t sure what purpose they could possibly have served, except potentially increasing the strength and virility of the organs themselves. Without finding the surgeon, or surgeons, who had performed all of these surgeries, I couldn’t possibly be sure how they worked.
I sat in shocked silence. I’d stopped the recorder when I finished. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’d called Chief Fredricks down because this was something that I knew he needed to see. He was busy, but I told him it was top priority and that my morgue was currently a hundred percent off limits to anyone that wasn’t me or the Chief.
I’d hoisted myself back up onto the other table. My bloodied gloves were discarded and I sat in utter shock. I didn’t know what else to do. This was something I wasn’t prepared for, and it was definitely something that I wasn’t trained to handle.
I briefly wondered if I should have had a quarantine put on the morgue. Then I wondered if I hadn’t just endangered Brahma with this whole mess, too. You don’t usually see people with this much clockwork enhancement, and you certainly don’t see people with metal bones. Wherever Rasputin had come from, they certainly had better medical facilities than we did.
I wanted a stiff drink and I found myself wishing, not for the first time, that I had taken Blaze up on his offer for a flask that I could hide when I needed a quick nip at work. My fingers were twitching out of nervousness and I had to force myself to breathe and calm down. I was overreacting and I knew it. My heart was pounding in my chest and my stomach was sour. There was something that was way over my head happening and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
I wasn’t waiting for long before Chief Fredricks showed up. Telling him that I was shutting down the morgue for whatever reason usually had him hurrying to come and see whatever it was that I was talking about before I got carried away. It was a useful tactic and it was one that I thankfully didn’t have to apply very often to get the results I needed. My words carried a lot more weight around the station than most people thought.
I heard the ping on the regular elevator echo down the hallway and I slid off the edge of the table. I didn’t bother straightening my clothes, Chief Fredricks knew that I was in the middle of an autopsy and that I’d stopped it because something was wrong.
The look on the Chief’s face when he glanced past me was enough for me to know that he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, either. I’d covered the cadaver, or at least, what was left of it, with a sheet so there was nothing exceptional for the Chief to look at until I was good and ready to show him.
“You called me out of a very important conference call,” Frericks said.
I ran a hand through my short hair and sighed. “I’m sorry, sir,” I replied hesitantly. “This was too important for me to just allow to go without you seeing firsthand.”
“This had better be good, Kali,” he warned. “I was talking to the mayor and several key players on the committee for the restoration of the Kitchen project.”
I nodded solemnly. I knew that the restoration of Hell’s Kitchen into a better neighbourhood was something that the Mayor had been talking about for years and only now were they getting the funding. After Doctor Jones’ death there was a huge push for the Kitchen to become a proper neighbourhood again, not just the slums it had become over the years. They wanted the gangs out and the more affluent people in. It was the usual city beautification crap, and I was pretty sure that it was never going to happen.
“I”m really sorry that I called you out of that meeting,” I agreed, pressing on quickly because I was nervous and Chief Fredricks, while I knew he was a cuddly teddy bear on the inside, intimidated the hell out of me even on a good day by just standing in the same room as me. “I do, however, think that this is a far more pressing matter than a bunch of rich guys telling you to arrest the kids who’ve found themselves falling on hard times in the Kitchen.”
“That remains to be seen, Miss Mason.”
I felt a shudder crawl down my spine at the curt tone the Chief was using, but I knew that my discovery was definitely the more important thing. “Grab some gloves, Chief,” I instructed. “You’ll probably want to get hands on.”
He did as I said and pulled a pair of gloves from the box. I followed, snapping my gloves on quickly because I wanted this horror show over with as quickly as I could get it done. Fredricks put on his gloves and scooted past me to help himself to an at apron. He handed me a clean apron from the hanger not he wall and I slipped it over my head, tying it quickly while he fussed with his, clearly not used to this sort of thing no matter how many times I called him down here to see the things I found. I always made sure that he was aware of what I discovered, especially on cases where I knew the cops weren’t exactly on the up and up, because I wanted to make sure my ass was covered when the shit hit the fan.
“Okay, now that your theatrics are done with, what do you have to show me that’s so important that it couldn’t wait for the paper report?” Fredricks asked.
I flashed him a smile “Don’t freak out,” I said. “This got a little more involved and messy than you’re used to.”
Fredricks nodded and I pulled the sheet aside. I’ve never seen a black man’s face go pale before, and let me tell you, I didn’t think it was possible. I don’t know how to describe it, but Fredricks looked like he might be sick.
“You gonna hurl, boss?” I asked.
Fredricks shook his head slowly. “Okay. Am I seeing this correctly?”
I nodded. “Yeah, you are. This guy has metal grafted to his bones and his internal organs are augmented with Clockwork in a way I’ve never seen and didn’t think was possible.”
The frown on the Chief’s face deepened and he touched the heart I’d removed from the cadaver and put next to the body. “No identification?”
“Nothing that I could find,” I admitted. “His dental work is impeccable, I’m pretty sure they’re fake teeth, implants and are untraceable. No fingerprints ‘cause of the synthetic skin they used to cover the Clockwork hands. Same with his feet. Both eyes are Clockwork, too. No retinal scans, no prints, no dental. No serial numbers, either. All of this stuff is more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen, boss.”
“This can’t be happening,” Fredricks muttered. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” I asked.
“Never mind,” Fredricks snapped. “Close him up, Kali. And have your reports gathered and ready to go when I get back. How long is it going to take you to close him up?”
I eyed the organs sitting next to the body that I’d have to replace, the Clockwork heart, the fact that his arms and legs needed to be rebuilt. I shrugged. “To fix him up to as close to showroom as I can get?”
“How long to stitch him up and put Humpty Dumpty here back together?” Fredricks demanded.
“I dunno,” I replied hesitantly. “An hour, maybe?”
“And to get the photos and reports?”
‘Gimme an extra thirty minutes?” I asked.
“You’ve got an hour twenty,” he said. “And the morgue is closed until further notice. You’re to close him up, compile your reports and not speak to a damn person until I give you a say so, got it?”
I nodded and Chief Fredricks left my morgue for the second time that day, taking his gloves and apron off as he did and leaving more questions in his wake.