Bodies
Dr. Blair Andrews in a lecture given at New Chicago University
The morgue is freezing when we step into the metal-lined room. Various tools and surgical implements are organized along the tables on one side. The other has a selection of exam cots. All but two are bare.
Dr. Blair Andrews turns to us, their grin genuine. They push a curl of their auburn hair from their eyes as they round the desk.
“Detectives,” they greet gently, their green eyes glittering with intelligent curiosity.
“Just a PI, doc,” I say, returning their smile. “What do we have?”
“Never just,” Blair says, but they nod and turn to the two tables laden with what I can only imagine are the bodies. “We have two dead. Two very different ways of dying.”
They pull back the sheet on Mara first, then the unidentified man.
“And they have two identical marks on their wrists.”
Blair reaches a hand below the covering on both corpses, pulling their right wrists above the sheet.
“Here,” they point to the wrists of both corpses.
Percy and I move forward together. Her closeness always settles my nerves, but now?
“Those weren’t there before,” I whisper, my mind racing through possibilities.
“No,” Percy says just as quietly.
The marks look like tattoos. In fact, they look like tattoos that were just done in the last few hours. It’s simple, it looks like—
“A compass?” Percy asks, her train of thought mirroring mine.
“An old world, pre-Second Disruption compass,” Blair says with a nod. “I thought the same thing.”
They move to Mara’s wrist, holding it up to the light.
“And I believe you’re right, Arya,” Blair says, their eyes coming up to meet mine. “These are new. As in, they were done postmortem.”
“How is that possible?” I ask, looking at Percy.
“It shouldn’t be,” she says, giving Blair a confused look.
“Who’s the guy?” I ask, looking back at the other uncovered body.
“That is Malachi Blackwood,” Blair says, reaching for a clipboard stuck to the front of the bed. “A DAEMON C-suite executive.”
“Oh fuck,” Percy groans, rubbing a hand down her face. “That’s going to be such a mess.”
“So, who tattooed them?” I ask, glancing between the two marks.
“That’s the other thing,” Blair says, pointing at the lines around Blackwood’s wrist. “They’re identical. I mean every line and wiggle is precisely the same. And there’s no ink.”
“No ink?” Percy asks, glancing at me. I simply shrug. I have tattoos, sure, but they required ink. Pain tolerance of a Remnant or not, those bitches hurt to get.
“I took skin samples,” Blair says as they place Blackwood’s wrist back down. “There are no traces of ink. These tattoos aren’t the traditional kind.”
“Affliction power?” I ask, frowning at the markings.
“Could be,” Blair responds, their eyes shining with incredible intellect. “I don’t know of any Remnant powers that explicitly tattoo, but there are some religious sects that work this way.”
“Oh, good,” I groan. “Cults.”
“Can you try and read him again?” Percy asks, gesturing at Malachi.
I glance at her. Her expression is soft but has this tinge of worry that seems worsen every time she looks at me.
“Sure,” I say, deciding to keep up the act of nonchalance I’ve adapted since lunch. It wouldn’t do to let Percy know just how badly the back-to-back communions had ruffled me.
Nightmares weren’t new. Neither were the whispers of the damned on the corpses we investigated.
What was new was the lack of any activity from these two corpses. Not only had they both messed with my powers, but they’d been silent before and after.
I reach over to Blackwood’s wrist and reach for the power. Of course, things go wrong immediately.
Darkness erupts around me. Where normally the room would disappear, it only twisted and turned. Swirls of the inky blackness that I associate with my powers curled and twitched as they tried, unsuccessfully, to blot out the room. The pain begins as a dull roar—like a threat, rather than a promise.
But as the tendrils of shadow fail to encapsulate the space around me, the throbbing turns into knife-like stabbing behind my eyes.
Then nothingness.
But the wrong type of nothingness. The darkness is full of deathly threats, rather than the calming presence of the dead.
A series of flashes brim in the darkness.
Their quick flittering sparks bright splashes of fire in my veins.
The burning only worsens as the flashes turn into images.
Images of a large machine, tubing and wiring sticking out in all directions.
Affliction flows through the tubing, crisscrossing the wiring and flowing into an insanely large tube of the powerful liquid.
Then the flashing stops abruptly. And I’m met with a sensation of falling.
Falling.
My head rebounds off the tile floor with a sickening crack.
“Fuck,” I groan, gripping at my face where the tile had done its best to take out my front teeth.
“Arya,” Percy squeaks, her hands wrapping around my shoulders as she turns me onto my side, then onto my back. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Mhm,” I grunt, not missing the term of endearment, but preoccupied with the way my face hurts.
“The wrist lit up,” I hear Blair’s voice over my own moaning. “What the fuck?”
Blair’s unusual swearing is enough of a surprise that I uncover my face enough to look up at the doctor. I can feel my Remnant healing working on repairing teeth that I am fairly sure were knocked loose.
“What?” Percy asks, her eyes finally leaving mine to look at the doctor as well.
Blair turns Blackwood’s wrist, so it faces us. Sure enough, the dark, circular symbol has lit up red. And as we watch it, it slowly dims back to the dark line-work.
“That was after I touched it?” I ask, running my tongue along the backside of my teeth, testing their stability.
Percy watches the movement for a moment before reaching down to pull me to my feet. Her bionic arm does most of the work, being much stronger than the human one.
“You okay?” Amber eyes trace my body in a way I wish was in any other scenario but this one.
“Only saw a weird machine. It was hooked up with Affliction and wires,” I sigh, prodding at my teeth with my finger. The entire healing process took only a few moments, but it still stung like a motherfucker.
“Why aren’t you able to read them?” she asks, her eyes studying mine.
“I don’t know,” I say, huffing out a laugh. “Clearly outgrowing my usefulness.”
“Speaking of Affliction,” Blair says, saving me from the platitude Percy was about to offer. “Mara’s death was about as bad as it could get for a Remnant.”
“How so?” I ask, shifting my attention to Blair.
“Affliction is the juice that makes Remnants, right?” Blair asks, clearly teeing us up for a history lesson. Dutifully, I oblige them.
“Sure, Infliction events where a human is hit with, introduced to, or ingests Affliction.”
“You’re a great student, Arya,” Blair says, their smile genuine as they move to Mara’s corpse. “I wish more of mine were as well-read.”
“A little old to be one of your students nowadays,” I say, nodding at Mara. “So, why’s she so different?”
“She’s not,” Blair says, with a quick shake of their head. “She’s a powerful Remnant, sure, but she had Affliction in her veins like any other.”
“But?” I prompt.
“But she has no trace of the fluid now. No blood. No Affliction. She was drained. Her entire source of Affliction would have been enough to power a small city.”
Before I can even consider the idiocy of the action, I reach forward and wrap my hand around Mara’s wrist.
The vision is unchanged. The same feminine voice. The same disappointed tone.
The darkness fades away, this time not nearly as painful as this morning. And Percy’s bionic hand is wrapped firmly around my bicep. The soothing rubs from her thumb are the only grounding element while my world returns back to full color and light.
“Anything?” she asks, her voice gentle.
“Nothing new,” I say, careful to keep my voice lighter. Careful to even remotely insinuate that I wanted to hear that woman’s voice again. That something about her words had been so impactful they’d seeped into my dreams already.
“Ladies,” Blair’s serious tone cuts through my thoughts. “Whatever took her power—her Affliction—is either incredibly powerful or is about to go off like a city-leveling bomb.”