Creatures of God

Silently Screaming

What happened? Elliot thought.

He walked into the pathology lab and found the control room in complete disarray. Disheveled normally anyway, this time it was strangely more so. The Professor's desk was off-set, out of line, as if shifted or shoved, the desktop monitor angled in such a way, not able to be viewed. A couple of the desk drawers were open, when normally they were closed and locked. On top, a couple stacks of paper were toppled, burying a keyboard and pointer underneath. On the floor, random articles and accessories were mixed-in with remnants of half-eaten food and an old, spilled beverage, strewn alongside a displaced chair.

Why is everything such a mess? Elliot thought.

Glancing through an observation pane, Elliot checked the status of the lab next-door. He was personally responsible for keeping the department clean, however an obvious wreckage had extended into that other area as well: chairs were turned over; loose papers had fluttered to the floor; individual books and binders were scattered over desks and floors. It was as if a tornado had blown itself through, from one room to the next, scattering everything in its way.

Elliot crouched down to pick a pen off the floor when he noticed it, just out of his periphery, beyond the desk and partly hidden by the chair: the figure of someone lying on the floor.

"No!!!" Elliot yelled.

He recognized the white lab coat, the black and grey hair, the glasses...

It was Elliot's mentor, Dr. Berman.

Elliot gasped and rushed to his mentor's aid, only to find a prone, lifeless body. He checked for a pulse, but the hand was cold to the touch and the skin an ugly purplish color. The Professor lay in a pool of blood, with his head turned away. His glasses were thrown to the floor, twisted and broken. His right arm lay upward and extended, reaching in its final action. More horrifying, though, was Dr. Berman's expression of terror, his eyes wide open and mouth silently screaming. The fact that the senior doctor was not breathing only confirmed an already foregone conclusion -- the Professor was dead.

Elliot covered his own mouth and stared at the terrible scene.

What happened?

The amount of splattered blood around the Professor's head and neck indicated a traumatic wound or injury. Had Dr. Berman had a heart attack or stroke, passed out and hit his head? It was too hard to know for sure, but the injury did not appear to be isolated to the Professor's head. A bloody shredding of the doctor's clothing at the right side of his neck and shoulder indicated a far more brutal injury.

Had the Professor been attacked?

Elliot looked about the room for an assault weapon, but nothing obvious was laid about.

Elliot's attention was re-drawn to the mess in the adjacent room. He hurried into the first lab. The most valuable items in the department were the lab equipment pieces themselves. Many were already out in the open -- microscope scanners, genetic analyzers, multiplex microtomes -- but none were missing. Inside opened drawers, many other items of interest were available but not taken, nothing stolen.

In Elliot's mind, nothing in the lab was worth killing someone over.

He turned and viewed the disorderly lab in its entirety. Starting at the entryway, Elliot imagined a perpetrator's entrance, their rushing about the room and leaving behind a trail of chaos and commotion; random drawers and doors were opened and emptied, equipment was knocked over and pushed, articles were handled and tossed.

Someone was looking for something.

Elliot stepped onward to the next room, a second lab room...

... then to the third lab room, which functioned more as a storage space...

... then to the chemical storage room...

... an equipment storage room...

... to the morgue, where a couple of the specimen lockers appeared unlocked and accessed...

... through the Bacteriology and Virology sections, through Hematology and the blood bank...

... to the converted guestroom where Alessandro had stayed since quarantine...

Elliot stopped and spun himself around in the small space. Nothing was disrupted in the remote room. Alessandro's bed was casually made, with a few personal items -- a computer tablet, a school uniform, an empty drink container -- out in the open. Otherwise, the overt clutter and disorganization had ended here.

Had the intruder found what he was looking for?

Elliot walked further, past the bedroom, to the next department section where a library of pathology references took up the next several branches. Walls and aisles of rolling cabinets stood tall within the space, their ladders neat and clean, their drawers intact and undisturbed.

Elliot went back to Alessandro's room.

Could Aless have murdered the Professor?

Earlier in the day Dr. Berman and Elliot had plotted to return Alessandro to solitary confinement. Dr. Berman was supposed to have had an appointment with him. And now the elder scientist was dead?

It made no sense, Elliot thought. Aless was just a boy, probably not even strong enough to overtake an old man...

Elliot frowned and bit his lip. That wasn't true. He recalled Alessandro's many exercises and his adolescent growth. What was it that Aless had said before, that something or another required physical strength?

Elliot couldn't remember and shook his head.

It wasn't like him, Elliot argued in his head. It wasn't Alessandro's character. Elliot knew him better than anyone. He was a good person. Religious even. Odd perhaps. Moody sometimes. But capable of doing such a heinous act?

Don't underestimate him!

Elliot could hear the Professor, urging him from the beyond.

Elliot returned to the control room where Dr. Berman's body lay. His broken eyeglasses and frame reminded Elliot of another time when he had found Alessandro lying in a pool of broken glass from a microscope lens.

Poor Dr. Berman! Why did this happen?

The Professor was hardly dangerous. He was pretty much a loner. He spent all of his time in the lab. He didn't have family or acquaintances outside of Anderson. All of his contacts were work related.

And yet, they were not necessarily his closest friends either, Elliot thought.

Still, Elliot knew of no obvious enemies or disagreements with the other physicians. They were all generally similar in their philosophy and political practice. Anderson was the Professor's life. He never deviated from the Center's directives...

... except to secretly experiment on humans from the Earth's distant past.

Elliot furrowed his forehead.

Is that why he was murdered? Who would have killed him?

The only unknown variable, Elliot thought;

The only person to have survived the emergence experiments;

The only person about whom Dr. Berman was concerned;

Alessandro.

"Interlink, call security!" Elliot said aloud.