Miranda watched Bucky take his fifth turn about the room. The fingers of his metal hand opened and closed. He paused in front of a tray populated with an assortment of metal instruments, their tips sharp and perfectly clean. Rolling his shoulder, he moved on.
Signing, Miranda absently flipped another page in the manila folder that had been left unattended on the exam table. "Would you please sit? You are trying my patience."
"I care little about your patience," he rumbled as he passed behind her. Again.
His nervous energy was palpable.
"Too many bad memories?" She asked, her tone forced to remain level. Casual. But she knew the comment would strike a cord.
He halted, shoulders tense. Slowly he turned toward her, his mouth opening to unleash a knife sharp response.
"I am so sorry I am late!"
The technician from the scene at the parking garage a few days earlier rushed in, sweeping past Sam who stood stiffly near the door. "I was just waiting for the results on a few more tests."
Miranda slid off the exam table, boots thumping the floor, and dropped the folder back where she had retrieved it from. The technician paused, eyeing the folder and then Miranda. Its contents had clearly not been meant for her eyes, and she could see the tech warring with whether or not she had the authority to tell her just that. Miranda squared her shoulders and stared unwaveringly back at her.
"Mr. Wilson." The tech said finally, looking away. "There will be no dead bodies here today. It's safe. You can join us."
Looking a bit sheepish, Sam moved away from the door. Miranda couldn't stop the single brow that rose of its own accord, judgement clear.
"Hey, just because we walk side by side with death everyday doesn't mean I like staring it in the face."
"Our victim was identified as thirty-seven year old Clarita Sanchez." The tech set a glossy photo of a smiling woman on the exam table. It was a stark contrast to the pale empty stare they had all witnessed days earlier.
"She often volunteered at the homeless shelter a few blocks down from the parking garage you found her in. Apparently it is not uncommon for the employees to park there and walk the rest of the way to work."
"Do you have a cause of death yet?" Miranda asked, leaning back against the counter opposite the exam table, arms crossed.
She took in a deep breath, shuffling her papers. "As far as we can tell the cause of death is cardiac arrest. Her heart just stopped beating. What we cannot determine is the why. She is young. In good health. No pre-existing conditions. Scientifically speaking, there is no logical reason for it.
Part of the reason we do not have the body here for you to examine for yourselves is that...well...odd things have been happening since we brought the body in for examination." The technician sifted through her papers, pulling out a few more photographs. "The body is decaying."
"As all bodies do," she supplied quickly when the trio exchanged questioning glances. "But at an unheard of rate and in a way I have never seen before. We are continuing to monitor her, but for fear that it may be some sort of flesh eating contagion, only those with a proper suit are allowed near the body."
Sam held up his hands. "I'm good. No morbid curiosity here."
"Decaying?" Miranda asked, stepping closer to get a better look at the photos.
"Yes. It started in the tissue damaged by cutting the symbols into her skin. But is quickly spreading throughout her body. Her organs have practically liquified."
Miranda felt a wave of cold wash over her as she picked a photo up off the surface of the exam table. The woman's fingers had turned black. Fissures had formed in the surface of the skin and what lay beneath was a blackened web of degrading tissue. Recognition fizzled in the back of her mind.
"You have no idea what is causing it?"
"No." The technician moved aside to allow them a better look at the photos. "I have a theory...but it's pretty far fetched. Not really a what. But a why."
"Does our technician have a name?" Miranda asked, silver eyes flicking to the girl.
"The 'technician' has a doctorate in both bio chem and medicine. And her name is Dr. Olivia Herold."
Sam barked a laugh.
"Impressive," Miranda picked up another photograph. "So our good doctor has a theory?"
This photo was of the woman's eyes. Blood had pooled around the rims of her eyelids like tears. Her pupils were cloudy and wretched to look at. Miranda forced each breath to be even and steady as she tried to stamp out the flicker of fear that was pooling inside her.
This is impossible.
"I just..." Olivia began. "The decay makes no sense. There is no blood flow in the body to carry a contagion through the system as the heart has stopped beating. And the decay definitely started at the wounds which were inflicted post-mortem. So my theory is that whatever was used to cut into the body was coated with whatever is destroying the human tissue. And the reasoning behind that is to destroy the body and any trace as to what they were trying to achieve with their ritual."
Miranda reached out to grip the exam table. The room around her swayed slightly and she shut her eyes.
"I was waiting for the toxicology report to come back before coming here," Olivia said, pulling the folder out from underneath her arm. They were all quiet as she read through it.
Miranda watched as her brow furrowed, the line there becoming deeper and deeper. Bucky picked up a photograph that had slipped near the edge of the table. It showed the symbols that were cut into the woman's skin. They were nothing like the neat red lines they had seen days earlier. Now they were distorted and black. Something oozed from the tail end of one carving. The sight of it made Miranda's skin itch.
"Have you made any progress with these symbols?" Bucky asked.
"We've been digging through our databases, but with how much knowledge we have obtained about the extent of the universe, there is a lot of ground to cover. At this point, we have just been focusing on human languages. Unfortunately, we are exhausting that avenue quickly."
Bucky squinted down at the photo in his hand.
"I do have some feelers out to some friends that might have some knowledge on alien languages. And I have reached out to a mentor for her opinion on what is going on with our corpse. She had dealt extensively with alien contagions before." Olivia set her folder down. "And according to what I have screened so far, there doesn't seem to be anything worth flagging in her blood work. I really thought something would show up."
"Maybe you aren't testing for the right things?" Miranda asked. "There are so many possible poisons out there. Some nearly undetectable."
Olivia looked up at her. "I find it interesting you mention poison specifically."
All eyes shifted to her.
Miranda swallowed. "Um, I mean. It could be drug related, I suppose. But isn't it true that sometimes if you are not specifically looking for something, a slight shift of numbers is difficult to see?"
Olivia pulled one sheet on top of another, straightening their edges. "I will try and run a few more tests that might display a few more elements that wouldn't show up on the initial blood panel. With the body decaying at the rate that it is, we are running on a limited amount of uncontaminated blood."
"Are you testing the decaying tissue?" Sam asked.
"We are trying. At this point we are just trying to understand what is happening. It's hard to tell exactly what to look for."
"But you will keep trying?"
"Of course."
"Is there anything else you wanted to share with us?" Bucky asked, setting his photo down.
"No," Olivia smiled at him briefly then looked down at her hands as she gathered the photos. "But if anything new comes up I will be sure to let you know."
Miranda smirked, looking down at her watch, "Yikes. If we aren't careful we are going to be late for our dinner date."
Olivia pointedly looked past Miranda to Bucky, her cheeks heating lightly. "With anyone in particular?"
"Just an old friend."