(no subject)

[evowhisperer]

  

-----

"Stand aside, please, I'm a doctor!"

 

Chaos. Pure, grainy, cheaply recorded chaos. The cellphone trembles violently with its owner's hands, and frightened shouting in Spanish from all around threatens to drown out the wails of a child. The dirty sidewalk is no place to treat the wounded.

 

The seven people bleeding out on the ground may not be alive to care, soon. The child screaming at a young couple's side is unhurt, but rightfully frightened.

 

Several someones pass in front of the camera. The owner moves to the side, and a loud male voice blares out, 'Are they alright? Are they alright?' when no one answers. The owner continues to move, and a frilly sleeve is pushed out of the way.

 

There's a man in a white labcoat kneeling over one of the bodies, pressing a cloth flat against a puddle of red.

 

'Hey, are they going to survive?'  the phone owner repeats. The doctor snags the cuff of someone standing too close, and orders them to keep pressing down. They step forward with shaking hands and kneel also, and soon the doctor stands and moves on.

 

Someone's voice is rising and falling hysterically. There's shouting about police, and an ambulance. The camera turns to look, but it doesn't seem that either have arrived, and when it looks back several people have begun to grab shirts from the store's open sidewalk display, following the doctor's example. 

 

The doctor is wearing a large woman's hat with a tag sticking out of it, now, conspicuously snatched from a knocked-over shelf. He's facing a direction that would normally let the camera see his profile, but the hat is big enough to hide all but his neck. He slows as he reaches a body that stares vacantly away--it's not the first he would've reached, but it is the first the camera has seen--and moves on.

 

Finally, there's the body that no one seems ready to approach, curled up and with its back to the crowd. Broken glass litters the ground around it, and when the doctor pushes it onto its back, he kicks a gun further out of reach.

 

Someone passes in front of the camera. "Hey..." The owner complains. No response, and the owner moves around. "Hey, why's he helping that fucker when there's people here who need help?"

 

The doctor's back is to the camera. It's impossible to see what he's doing until he glances towards the crowd, loops the hat's strap tightly around his jaw, and starts CPR.

 

No one stops or helps him. The camera continues to watch, eventually panning over the wounded, and the unhurt victims still milling around. Someone shouts about the police again, and more people are kneeling over the wounded victim's bodies, pressing down more cloth. The child has climbed into a sitting woman's lap, face buried in her hair.

One of makeshift medics calls out to the doctor tearfully, but they are ignored.

 

There's an outcry. The camera snaps back to the doctor, who's lifting his head from the shooter's chest, pushing down arms that have begun to move sluggishly. More shouting, with more than a couple of screams. The crowd is starting to shuffle back, and the doctor throws up a blood-soaked hand, shouting urgent assurances. The camera glimpses part of his face, and he's young, and very clearly aware of the new dangers--both from revived shooter, and the crowd.

 

"He's not armed!" Triple checking. The doctor kneels on his wrist, shifting the man to check underneath. Quadruple checking. "He has no more weapons! He's unconscious!"

 

The shooter's eyes are glazed but open, and the confusion in the crowd eddies and swirls. Before anyone can do anything, there's armed men in uniforms of the law shoving through the crowd, taking control of the situation. The crowd's din reaches a new high, and the man with the camera is forced back. It becomes impossible to see anything else, as people move back and shake the camera every which way.

 

There's only a glimpse left of the doctor left in the clip, and it's from one last ditch effort. The phone gets held high in the air, and it shows a white coat turned to one of the uniforms, hands forward, bloody, and earnestly reassuring.

 

The clip cuts out.

 

Comments

[evowhisperer]

And just like that, Ryuzaki and his ominous predictions for their working relationship has wandered away. Caesar can't help but send the older gentleman a grateful look, before he picks the remains of his food container up and stands. There's a small trash bin tucked in a corner, and the styrofoam fits much better once he's folded it to shape.

They all have a short meeting shortly after, just enough to repeat introductions and what little Caesar has already declared of his intentions. It's not very informative, and Caesar wonders if there hadn't been some other reason to bring everyone together the way they did.

He's pointed towards a side room by the end of things. Someone has already left his stuff there, all of it still packed in an only slightly-rearranged suitcase. He pokes around for his laptop, finds it still missing, and gives it up for lost for the time being.

He lays back on the bed, fully clothed and on top of the blankets, and tries to sleep.

----


The morgue is empty tonight. Really empty, not just seemingly so, and Caesar feels uncomfortable without the makeshift disguise he'd taken to using. His face feels exposed.

Not that the corpses are likely to have any way of showing his face and name to Kira. Caesar sighs, leading the way for the few of them by about a step. He's been here before hasn't he? They're going to a side storage room, but he's passed here on his previous visits.

He turns the knob to the last door.

"Hmm... It's still locked."

[dead_black_eyes]

It's no coincidence that the morgue is deserted. It's actually locked and guarded from any potential intruders, even the attendants that call it their place of employment. L has made arrangements to give them total privacy, and while that might be a fantasy come true for some unscrupulous mortician, it's a matter of safety and practicality for two scientists.

Ryuzaki, despite his spacey demeanor and disheveled looks, seems to have had no trouble slipping into the mental aspect of his new role. as Caesar had slept, he'd taken the several hours to study, beefing up on aspects of biochemistry that can aid them with terrifying speed and thoroughness. He's turned himself into a highly competent and informed assistant.

"Move," he says with easy authority, brushing past Caesar with a ring of keys in his absurdly delicate, limp-wristed grip. The lock yields and he gestures for Caesar to open the door.

[evowhisperer]

Caesar, for his part, has no idea that the team's resident 'spy' has also turned into an assistant capable of assisting beyond the capacity of a mere bodyguard.

Caesar opens the door. The stench of death was already strong in the hall, but it's nothing compared to the room beyond. Two cadavers have already been laid out, awaiting examination: one is the body he'd been there to examine the night before. The next is one he doesn't recognize.

"I assume the new one is a control?"

He'd changed into less 'nice' clothes for the venture, and now he rolls up his sleeves, washing his hands in a nearby sink.

[dead_black_eyes]

The door opens, and Ryuzaki immediately stands aside, the back of his hand going to cover his nose and mouth. He prepared for this, too, but in hindsight he probably should have delayed this long to put the step into action. Coughing and stifling a gag, he's reaching into the pocket of his smock-like jacket for two surgical masks and a bottle of peppermint oil, thrusting the items at Caesar.

"I don't like it..." his stifled voice chokes out. "Put the oil on the masks, and then give me one, and hurry."

Whether Caesar's companion has a weak stomach or especially strong senses is anyone's guess, but either way it doesn't seem like he'll willingly cross the room's threshold until peppermint is all he can smell.

[evowhisperer]

Caesar looks back at him for a long moment, before leaving the sink, and walking back to the door. He doesn't say anything out loud, but his look is a little judging.

Both masks get doused with the oil. He hands one to Lazarus, assuming that the second is for himself, and he puts this one on.

[dead_black_eyes]

It's the first time that Caesar would have been able to discern anything like discomfort in Ryuzaki, or indeed anything other than the strange, fixated interest or disinterest he has for things in his line of sight. It's at least a glimpse of humanity, for however much Caesar might be judging him.

He takes the mask and immediately slips it on when it's offered, going to wash his own hands afterward.

[evowhisperer]

If Caesar were more comfortable he'd find the whole thing hilarious. As it is now, he's still trying to get a read over what sort of assistant this Ryuzaki is actually going to be, and he's not encouraged.

Oh well. At least this is the sort of thing he'd been ready to do on his own, so it's not like the man's going to hold him back.

There's a box with cameras on a table behind them, and he opens one to put together. Wow--these look ancient. Do they still use film? Cesar turns the digital screen on with a look of askance, needing a bit longer than he'd like to assemble it properly.

"Documentation of everything will be paramount," he says out loud, taking a picture of each cadaver. "The time stamps will help identify each stage."

He puts the camera aside, taking out his cellphone. He thumbs the screen for a few seconds, and then holds it still over the first body, waiting until it gives a chime.

[dead_black_eyes]

To Ryuzaki, the cameras are perfectly up to date, and he tilts his head questioningly when Caesar seems to regard them as if they're somehow unexpected. "I hope they'll suffice," he says, monotone muffled through the mask he's wearing as he shuffles around to the other side of the tables and watches Caesar photograph them.

"I really must object to the use of your phone," he says when he notices Caesar taking it out. "The cameras will provide time stamps no problem, and I'd prefer if there was absolutely no possibility of you sending this information outside of this room."

It's his very polite way of accusing Caesar of wanting to leak information.

[evowhisperer]

Caesar hasn't had time to do more than key in his password when L cuts in, and he stops without continuing.

Well. This might become a problem.

"I need to use a modular application that's built into my phone," he explains. The phone stays where it is, not turning to show L the screen, and not being put away, either. "I can set my phone into airplane mode, if that would help. No mobile network, no internet--just the app."

[dead_black_eyes]

Ryuzaki's mouth sets in a hard line, though the only evidence of it with the mask covering his face's lower half is a sudden flinty finish on his dark eyes. Whatever his role actually is in the investigation, he doesn't his orders being questioned.

"Show it to me," he says briskly, circling behind Cesar and resting his chin on the other man's shoulder, bony angles pressed against his more well-muscled flank. "Everything you're doing. I will need to supervise it if the process is truly necessary."

[evowhisperer]

Oh, wow, that's--kinda too close. Caesar pulls his shoulder out from under the man, sidling back. He's not going to run away, but there's definite rebuke hiding in his expression, and he's bringing the phone up as though substituting it for a warning hand.

"It's all very mundane, I assure you. I've had experience working in confidential environments before, if that helps at all."

This is Caesar's nice way of saying L is going overboard, and that pushing his personal bubble and his secrecy is enough to get a reaction from him. The taller man squeezes the phone from both sides, and the power screen appears as a truncated menu. Airplane mode is one of the lower options, and he taps it.

A pop-up appears. ''Turn on Airplane mode. Airplane mode allows you to turn off calling, messaging, and data network features. It also...

Caesar tilts the screen and moves it to the side to invite L's attention. It's held far enough that L can't quite get the same results if he leans on Caesar the way he had been before.

[dead_black_eyes]

Most people would absolutely consider it "too close", but Ryuzaki doesn't appear to have any unscrupulous motives. Not that that means much, with him; with the exception of the stench of corpses revealing an embarrassingly delicate constitution, he's very good at concealing what he's truly thinking and, especially, feeling.

"Regardless, I really must be informed..."

No ifs, ands, or buts. The phone serves as a adequate distraction, adequately drawing Ryuzaki's attention as his eyes glance over the description of the function. With no immediate need or reason to lean on Cesar, he doesn't seem compelled to, which must come as some kind of relief to the other man.

[evowhisperer]

It does. His shoulders relax--slightly--and he holds back a sigh, selecting the option. The menu disappears, showing a wall of little app-tiles and a high definition background image of... an intact nanite? It's too perfect to be anything but a model.

He jabs a finger at the appropriate app immediately, as though wanting to push through this quickly. Seconds later the display is filled with a yellow-tinted grid, with occasional blips and faint beeps. It's getting readings from the nanites that've clung to him in the months since leaving his home world. The readings are in the way.

Cesar taps a corner of the screen twice, and the blips go silent. Then he goes to the nearest corpse, holding the phone up as though to photograph it from above.

The only change comes when Cesar's hand accidentally passes under the phone's sensor. Beyond this, the phone is silent.

[dead_black_eyes]

Ryuzaki squints at that image; he's able to infer well enough what it is based on what he already knows of Cesar's work, and nods, allowing the other man to open the app without protest.

"What are those blips?" he asks, sharp eye catching them. "Are you eliciting them by merit of something in your own body? The nanites you spoke of?"

[evowhisperer]

Shit. What can he say? 'Yes'?

"That's just environmental interference. It's important to always zero your readings when you start, or who knows what it will read."

Yeah, he's doing the whole 'turn his back on L' and lifting the phone here. The phone is silent, and after a long pause he moves on to the next body.

Your joke tag was also great

[dead_black_eyes]

Environmental interference? Sure...

"You're saying that if it's no zeroed out before you start, the readings could be random or arbitrary?" he asks. "You'll really have to forgive the fact that I'm not familiar with this technology and that might slow us down, but I guarantee I won't forget something once you tell me. That's just how I am."

That's also, perhaps, a warning. If you're lying, you'd better be damn good at memorizing your lies.

Hahaha, thanks. I need to use that icon soon...

[evowhisperer]

"Random, arbitrary--they could even pick up noise from the building's electrical outlets, if you're not careful."

'He'll remember everything'. Is that a threat, or just an expression? Either way Cesar won't turn around, and he's acting as though there's nothing that he needs to be concerned about.

Which there isn't. Cesar finishes taking readings from both bodies with nary a peep, and he lowers the phone to tap a few more times on the screen before putting it away. If L was close enough to see, he was stopping the app, and then turning the screen off.

"Has any sort of standard procedure for your own examinations of Kira's victims been established? My own studies have been hasty up until this point, and I don't want to miss anything you're hoping to find."

If 'hasty' means that he's been taking pictures, grabbing a few key samples, and leaving as quickly as possible, then yes, he's been 'hasty'.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Seriously? That seems wildly impractical given the delicacy of this work."

Ryuzaki hangs around, still close to Caesar without encroaching so dramatically as he was before. He watches the screen flick off, then he's eyes return to the other man's face.

"There have been autopsies, of course. In every case, there were no blockages causing the heart attacks, and attempts to restart the cardiac muscle were unsuccessful. The heart beat once, and then never again, regardless of the number of attempts. Examination of the heart itself revealed nothing wrong with it, and I've been particularly interested in attempting a transplant from a Kira victim to a body in need of a donor organ, just to see what would happen, but... you can imagine the ethics tangle that is. We've had no luck getting anyone to agree to it."

[evowhisperer]

"It's not hard to understand why. I don't suppose guaranteeing a backup heart to use if the first one fails has helped?"

As callous as his suggestion is, he's still grimacing, and it's clear that this is pushing an edge of his comfort zone.

"What about transplanting a healthy heart into a Kira victim?"

[dead_black_eyes]

Ryuzaki laughs. It's a strange, unpracticed, quavery sound that doesn't sound natural in the slightest.

"Maybe not hard to understand why, but still... a nuisance. As for transplanting a healthy heart... don't get me wrong, I want to try it, but hardened criminals are hardly the sorts to make it onto organ wait lists, especially in that time frame. We could probably arrange something but I guarantee at least a few people on our team would have a big problem with it."

[evowhisperer]

Cesar simply nods. He doesn't say what it's like to be on a team where so many people genuinely care about the law, just then. If this were Providence, there wouldn't be anyone there who wouldn't understand the words 'for the greater good'. If this were Providence, they'd overwhelm circumstances with money and power and secrecy, and no one would be the wiser.

It's strange, and a little inconvenient. Not that he's objecting, of course: this is all a small price to pay to keep what matters out of Providence's hands.

"I take it there've been no autopsies with unusual results? No strange tests, genetic background checks, environmental circumstances, or meteorological coincidences?"

[dead_black_eyes]

If Ryuzaki knew what it was like to work on a team like Caesar's, with fewer ethical constraints and red tape, the unfortunate and disquieting truth is that he'd probably be more excited and eager than horrified. As Caesar will learn soon if he hasn't begun to already, Ryuzaki is absolutely an ends-justify-the-means kind of guy.

"Unusual, other than having a perfectly functional heart in a perfectly healthy body that's not beating?" he asks dryly. "Nothing like that, at least not in any conclusive manner. The distribution of the factors you're describing is as random as it would be in any general population."

[evowhisperer]

"That's telling in itself. I've had a few theories since I realized this wasn't likely caused by nanites... This may also give me clues for when I modify that cure into its next iteration."

'I', not 'we'. L was never invited to help him work on the nanites, even if he's invited himself into trying.

[dead_black_eyes]

The pronoun usage doesn't go unnoticed. Ryuzaki responds to it with a slow, creeping smile that, as usual, fails to ignite his dark eyes with life or any true enthusiasm.

"You sound as if you're not planning to work with our team for very long. While I admire your optimism that we'll catch Kira and cut you loose that quickly, my own projections for this case allow for quite a lot of time together. You can't be intending to delay your work for all that time."

[evowhisperer]

L's dark eyes are the Black Knight's razor sharp ones, and Caesar feels as though he's grasping at something intangible and dangerous. Something's not right. His shoulder and hand twitch subconsciously, and he's feeling the presence of millions of machines too tiny for human senses to notice.

"I'm not sure I completely follow, Ryuzaki. I don't plan on delaying anything once I have access to the computers you promised."