Disclaimer: These are CBS's characters (of course).
Dr. Martin Neuberg struggled under the weight of his lab assistant's (or rather former lab assistant's) body. Neuberg's original plan had been to leave the body deep in the jungle of the national park. Unfortunately, he had always functioned better in the lab then in the real world. In the real world, moving the dead weight of a human body was harder than Neuberg had imagined, even a scrawny body like Matthew's.
It was a shame really. Matthew had been one of the best lab assistants he had worked with, smart, hard working, and willing to overlook certain "oddities" in exchange for a generous paycheck. The accident that had killed him had resulted from a terribly uncharacteristic carelessness.
Still, Matthew's untimely demise had provided invaluable data which would allow the project to be completed well ahead of schedule. In fact, it was so close to finished that Neuberg would not even have to be troubled with finding a replacement. And it meant one less loose end to tie up later. Really, Matthew's fatal mistake was turning out to be quite fortuitous.
Neuberg's musings were interrupted by the sounds of hikers on a nearby trail. He held his breath as the group passed close to him, but the combination of encroaching twilight and the dense jungle allowed him to remain unnoticed. He thought fleetingly of his van parked only a 100 yards away at the foot of the trail. There was no way the hikers could fail to see it.
This was getting out of hand. There was no reason for them to give the van even a passing thought. There was also no reason for him to be bothered dragging Matthew's rather grotesque corpse any further. Twenty feet from the trail and hidden in dense jungle growth, it would be at least a few days until he was found. Then a few more days to identify him and by then it would no longer matter.
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"Were you aware that the Honolulu Police Department has a homicide division?" Detective Danny Williams asked pleasantly.
From the silver Camero's driver's seat, Williams' partner, Lt Cdr Steve McGarrett glanced at him warily. Steve didn't know where this was going, but Danny's pleasantness – at 7:30 in the morning no less – warned Steve that his partner was gearing up for a major rant.
For his part, Danny did not wait for Steve to reply. "I know that HPD has a homicide division course. And do you know what we did in the HPD homicide division? We investigated murders!" Danny punctuated this important point with a series of hand gestures.
Steve waited a beat to see if it was really his turn to talk. He still wasn't certain what point Danny was trying to make. "So being asked to investigate a potential murder is making you nostalgic?" he ventured.
"Nostalgic!" Danny stared at him incredulously, eyes wide, hand waving. "Nostalgic to be up at the crack of dawn! Nostalgic to be traipsing into the JUNGLE – to view a body that should be under the jurisdiction of the HPD!"
Steve sighed and prayed for patience. "I've already explained – several times – that the body is in an unusual condition and HPD has requested that we take a look before it's transported to the morgue."
"That is weak," Danny told him as Steve pulled into a small parking area with several HPD cars and a coroner's van. "A weak excuse by some homicide detective who wanted to sleep in and enjoy his morning coffee."
Steve had stopped listening, exiting the car and striding up the path that led away from the parking area and into the rainforest. Danny followed at a slightly slower pace, eyes scanning the sides of the path. It occurred to Danny that they were incredibly lucky that the body had been found at all. With all of the dense foliage, if the jogger's dog hadn't broken its lease and run off the trail, the body would still be decomposing away unseen.
Rounding a corner, Danny saw where a new side path had been beaten down, leading away from the main trail. He nodded to the HPD officer guarding the entrance to the side trail. "How many people have been down there?"
"Just the jogger who found the body and the 2 patrol officers who responded to the 911 call. We've put up the caution tape and we're waiting for Dr Bergman to remove the body before we start processing the scene. And Cmd. McGarrett just headed down."
Danny nodded approvingly, "The corner's van is down in the parking lot. Max must be getting his gear ready. He should be here in a minute. Where's the jogger now?"
"We took him back to HPD headquarters to talk to the detective in charge."
Danny couldn't quite keep the smirk off his face, remembering his earlier comments to Steve about lazy detectives. Fortunately, the HPD office on the trail didn't understand the source of his amusement, and Danny started down the path after his partner.
He joined Steve in squatting silently next to the body and took a few minutes to study the corpse. The victim was male with features that made him seem Caucasian, but his skin was a terrible molten combination of sickly greens, purples, and blues. It was similar to bruising but not quite the same. The discoloration was not uniform. Based on the skin that Danny could see on the man's arms and torso (through the tears in his white t-shirt) the discoloration seemed to be much darker on the right side of his body. Most horrible of all, the skin on his right arm was almost black and seemed somehow misshapen – somehow too soft. Danny really hoped it was an illusion caused by the extreme discoloration.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Danny asked his partner. After all, Steve had been to a lot exotic places and seen a lot of weird shit.
"No, nothing like this," Steve sounded distracted, all of his laser focus turned on the corpse in front of him. Steve reached out one gloved hand and gently touched the right arm. He frowned and pressed harder.
"Hey!" Danny objected," You don't just go around poking dead things! Wait for Max!"
Steve brushed the protest aside with a wave of his hand. He continued to study the indentation his finger had left on the victim's arm, an indentation that was actually growing larger before Steve's eyes. It was as if the arm had no internal structure and Steve's touch was all that it needed to collapse. As the arm collapsed, the skin stretched and then, with a wet smacking of sound, it tore open.
"God!" Danny yelled, jumping back as a foul smelling viscous black fluid began seeping through the tear. "That is why you don't poke the dead guy, Steven."
Even McGarrett could not quite control his look of revulsion as he hurriedly stood up and took a step back. Both men were so absorbed by the revolting developments in front of them that neither noticed Dr. Max Bergman standing behind them at the mouth of the path.
Max stopped short, pausing to study the two taskforce members and the corpse, all roped off inside the yellow crime scene tape. He did not approach any closer. "Gentlemen, was the body secreting that black liquid when you first arrived?"
"No, not before Super Seal here poked at it," Danny replied with relish, poking at Steve with one of his own fingers. Steve swatted his hand away.
Max sighed and nodded to himself," I'm afraid that I am going to ask you to be patient while we wait for a quarantine team to arrive."
"Excuse me?" It was only Steve's restraining hand that stopped Danny from ducking under the caution tape.
"A very initial observation of the body's unusual decomposition could indicate several different causes, but I cannot rule out a viral or bacterial cause. Both of which should could be airborne. Once the skin was broken, the contagion, if it exists, could have been released into the air." Without giving the blonde detective further chance to respond, Max pulled out his cell phone and began making the necessary arrangements.
"Do you believe this guy?" Danny asked, turning to Steve with an incredulous expression. But the deadly serious look on his partner's face stopped him short.
"He's right," Steve said quietly, moving as far away from the body as the caution tape allowed and sitting down on the ground to wait.
Danny dropped down beside him. "I would like to go on record as saying that this is all your fault."
Instead of his usual comeback all Steve could give him was a miserable nod.