Disclaimer: I own nothing. Ilehana and Dale belong to Corrinth and are used with thanks.
A/N: One shot fic, written absolutely years ago that I thought it about time I posted. Dedicated to Corrinth, with thanks for all the writing we've shared over about twelve years. Time flies when you're having fun!
An Autopsy
Deep underground, buried below Vancouver's hospital in a grandiose chamber, a young woman stood over a weather-beaten cadaver and sighed. With graceful, nitrile gloved hands she reached out and turned on a spot lamp. The lamp flickered momentarily, before spilling staunch white light onto the formaldehyde stained remains. Turning away from the nameless, soulless corpse, the tall female pulled a green surgical cloth from a tray, revealing a glinting collection of instruments. Diligently, she lifted a circular cutting blade from the implement tray and flicked the switch. With a lurch, the blade jolted into lift. It made a whirring sound that cut through the otherwise silent air.
Ridding her mind of childhood memories of dentists with a deliberate shake of her blonde head, the woman set down the saw blade and replaced it besides its fellows. The tinkle of metal in the steel tray echoed around the room as she unconsciously straightened the line of scalpel blades. Picking out the most suitable cutting tool, the lab-coated medical student turned back to her subject and placed the sharp edge onto the unresisting skin of her companion's still chest.
Ilehana Xavier had a great deal of respect for those who willingly left their remains for scientific study. She knew that without this sacrifice, medical students such as herself would be learning blind. Historically the medical community had not always been so well supplied with material. In Dark Age Europe, all the medical advances made by the Ancient Greeks and philosophers of Rome were lost in an uprising of myth, fear and religious zealotism. It took hundreds of years for mankind to recover from the loss.
Horror tales from Victorian Britain of the black-market trade in bodies were based on fact. In the subterranean streets of Edinburgh, murderous men had made a good living selling their victims to doctors in the name of scientific research. Ilehana had been to the now deserted tunnels under Edinburgh's busy streets and grand tenements. She dreaded to imagine how many innocent people had been butchered there in the name of her chosen profession.
With the Y-incision made, the body cavity opened and the surplus internal organs removed, Ilehana was beginning her study by injecting a coloured resin into the collapsed blood vessels around the cadaver's chest. She pressed her lips together in concentration as she pushed the needle into the tissue-paper thin vessel. Such was the way she was concentrating, this time he thought he might actually be able to sneak up on her…
"Hello Dale," Ilehana greeted her companion when he was still three feet behind her. He made a grunt of annoyance before kissing her cheek. His unshaven skin chafed pleasantly on her face. Not wishing to outstay his welcome, Dale quickly stepped away and around the spread-eagled corpse.
"How'd you know it was me?"
Ilehana smiled, but said nothing. The truth was she could tell he was approaching before he even entered the room. Any one of a hundred little signs gave him away. There was the way he walked on the tiled floors, cheap shoes squeaking in an irregular beat, due to the slight limp he carried from an old sports injury. There was his smell, that disinfectant-and-cigarette taint that clung to the lab coats of so many junior doctors, but none so much as Dale. Then there was the slightly heavy breathing, as if he had just jogged from the top floor cellular pathology laboratory all the way down to this basement autopsy room, which was indeed the case. And then there was the fact that Ilehana Xavier was, like her father, telepathic.
"Humph," Dale grunted when she refused to explain herself. "No wonder the rest of the med student fraternity think you're creepy."
"I didn't have you marked down as someone who cares what everyone else thinks," Ilehana countered, unperturbed.
"I don't," Dale replied cheerfully, tossing a magazine down on the cadaver's legs so that she could see its title, the Lone Gunmen. Ilehana sighed at her friend's lunacy.
"More conspiracies? What is it this time? Did aliens shoot JFK on orders from the FBI and Elvis?"
"Why would aliens shoot anyone?" parried Dale with a sad little frown. "They'd use death rays, surely. Unless they wanted you to think it was a human shooter…" Ilehana very deliberately rolled her eyes and groaned. "Sorry," he said, "force of habit." He waved a hand at the magazine. "No, this one's a special investigative edition. I've been waiting months to get my hands on a copy, they're rarer than gold dust."
"Or vaguely believable alien abductees, with no drug or alcohol dependencies and no psychological or behaviour issues," said Ilehana. Dale ignored her.
"It's right up your street, look," he insisted. "Mutants: They are among us!" Ilehana looked over the bold headline with a sinking, sick feeling in her stomach. The cover was emblazoned with a blurry photograph of a two-headed man that showed more resemblance to a 1950s B-horror movie than any scientific fact. Alongside and below the picture were a series of bullet points, teasers for stories that filled out the magazine's special issue.
- Magnetic interference stops White House teleconference- mutants blamed!
- Snow in Cairo, Egypt- mutant sighting confirmed!
- The boy with lasers in his eyes- special report!
- Hideous mutants live in my sewers - chilling true story!
- England- Missing teen blamed for deathly fire- how did she walk away?
- Confirmed- Three Mile Island WAS a mutant research lab!
"I can't believe you read this junk," Ilehana said, trying and failing to cover her disgust.
"I can't believe you're so unwilling to consider that there might be more to the human race than what they taught us in Anatomy 101. Open your eyes, Ilehana. Science is making amazing leaps every day. New species, new compounds, new nanoparticles! Evolution is driving us to adapt, to better ourselves. We might think we have all the answers, but we don't…" Dale seemed to realise that Ilehana was tuning him out, ignoring this well-practised speech and concentrating on the project in front of her.
"Take Mr Stiff here," Dale waved a hand at the body. "You're busy chopping him open like a veritable Genghis Khan, did you ever stop to think what you would do if you found an extra spleen in there? Or a double liver? Or no liver at all? Would you dismiss it as a freak of nature, or would you be willing to consider, just consider the possibility of this being the next step in human evolution?"
"I might consider it a cause of death of he had no liver at all," offered Ilehana sarcastically, "though I'd be staggered if he'd got to be this old."
"Why do you do that?" Dale asked in a hurt little voice.
"Do what?"
"Dismiss my ideas and theories and whatever like I'm a babbling madman. I have thought this through, Ilehana. I am not some half-cooked drunk or an escapee from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This means something to me, and it hurts me when you make out I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot," Ilehana told him, looking him straight in the eye so he knew she was telling the truth. "You're just…"
"Just what?"
"Gullible," she told him with a laugh as he slapped her across the arm with the magazine.
"Alright, I don't have to stand here to be insulted…"
"Take a table," Ilehana said. "I've nearly finished with this one, I could autopsy you next, see if you're a mutant?"
"Or you could finish up like a good little medical student and come meet me in the bar in thirty minutes," Dale replied. "I'll buy you a beer and try to convince you that mutants exist."
He didn't wait for Ilehana to come up with a clever reply, turning on his heel and heading back the way he had come. Ilehana smiled to herself. He was a good friend. He deserved better, and she should trust him more… Instinctively she reached after him with her telepathy.
Halfway up the stairs, Dale stopped as a familiar voice suddenly said his name, close behind him. He turned around, almost falling, expecting Ilehana to be right behind him. There was nothing there.