A Chain of Unfortunate Events

Dr. Temperance Brennan had been working late – again, which came as no surprise to anyone working in the lab, as they all had left for the evening hours ago, not even bothering to ask if she were going to walk out with them. Angela put in a good effort of course, but she had a date tonight, and didn't want to get caught up arguing with Brennan about her lack of social life, so she too left, assuring Temperance she'd tell her all about her date, and promised not to leave out any details the following morning.

Most of the lights in the museum were out, except of course the lab area, where she was currently bent over the table, examining remains. Under normal circumstances, Mondays she tried to get out of there at a decent time, but she had been too enthralled in the most recent set of remains to come up from Bone Storage – or as Zack called it – "Limbo".

The bones were found at the base of the Andes Mountains in South America, but had no climbing gear with them, or any other survival gear of any kind, not to mention the fact that the bones were approximately 30-40 years old, soil analysis and PH levels indicated they had been in their location for only 10 – 15 years. A fascinating find and she was anxious to attempt to identify him. It was almost eerily quiet, as she straighted up and stretched, she made her way around the lab, turning out the lights in her immediate vicinity, walking slowly back to her office, making notes in the file as she walked.

Absently, she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and let out a long sigh, realizing she missed both lunch and dinner.

Glancing down at her watch, her eyebrows rose and she rolled her eyes at the time. It was long past time for her to go home if she planned on getting any sleep at all. It was after 1am.

Placing the file she'd been writing in on her desk, she sat down at her computer, and moved the mouse to stop the screen saver and to open her email. Scanning the screens contents in front of her, nothing seemed urgent, so she went through the process of shutting down her computer. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the red light blinking on her voice mail indicator, the display screen on her phone said: "You Have 1 Message". Picking up the phone, she pushed the voice mail button, and pressed in her pin number.

Stretching across the desk, she quickly grabbed a pen, and scratch paper. Frowning, she glanced at the phone set again, to make sure she pushed the right buttons, as all that greeted her was silence. Then she heard it. A male voice – "You have been warned, and you blatantly disregarded the warning. You have no one to blame but your self" and with that, she heard a soft click and the voicemail program was prompting her to save, delete or transfer the message. She set the pen down, hung up the phone, and walked out of the office. She didn't have time for prank phone calls. She was tired and wanted to go home, eat, maybe work on her new manuscript and go to bed.

The voicemail message already forgotten, Temperance made her way out of the Jeffersonian, nodding absently at the night security guards. Reaching the parking structure, she fumbled in her bag for her keys, and stopped for a moment to dig them out. She noticed the lights above her car were burnt out, making it all that much more difficult to locate the rogue keys. Swearing under her breath, she finally located them, and started walking again towards her car. With a push of a button, the doors were unlocked and she was sliding into the driver's seat, starting the car. There were no other cars to be seen, as she maneuvered her silver sports car around the dark, empty lot. She turned on her radio to a classical music station she enjoyed, and rolled down the window to let in some air. It had been a long day, and she was glad to be going home finally.

Speeding down the freeway to her apartment, she frowned slightly as she pressed the brakes, they seemed sort of squishy, she made a mental note to herself to stop at the garage she had her car serviced at to check it out, hoping it was nothing major. Signaling, and swerving into the exit late for the route that would take her home, she again pressed on the brakes….only nothing was happening; her foot went all the way to the floor. Panicking slightly, she again tried pressing the brakes, and nothing happened, she was still going over 60 miles an hour up the exit ramp to the stop lights at the top. Mind racing, at what she had been taught what to do when brakes failed. Her car was not a manual, so down shifting was out of the question, she suddenly remembered – the emergency brake! She pulled the brake located next to the center console of her car, and nothing happened there either! The two systems must be on the same brake line or something she thought frantically. With nothing left to do but let her car slow down on its own, her car hurled up the ramp and through the red stop light at breakneck speed. Thankfully, at the late hour, there was no traffic. Finally, her car slowed down on its own, within 2 blocks from her apartment. Carefully, she accelerated as much as she dared, and maneuvered her car into her spot in the garage, not before hitting her front end on the cement wall with her apartment number painted on it. Getting out of her car and slamming the door perhaps a little too hard, she swore as she stomped around to the front of the car to survey the damage.

Stalking up the stairs that led her to the elevators, she didn't notice the brake fluid pooling around the rear tires of her car. She was too preoccupied with the front end damage, and the pain it was going to be getting to work, and getting her car serviced. Her good mood gone, she thought to herself that tomorrow had to be better.

End chp. 1