The Coming Future (A Castle Fanfiction)

Part Five: Secrets Don't Make Families

Inside the morgue, the room seemed divided. One side stood home to Beckett, Castle and Maddie who'd just barely come through the doors. When they did, they met Lanie and Esposito on the other side of the metal table where a body rested, completely covered with the near white sheet. When Lanie and Javier noticed them step inside, they were met with Beckett's routine, "What do we got?"

"Beckett? Do you feel alright? You look offal," Lanie told her friend without remorse.

The annoyed detective responded with, "I'm fine. Now, can we please move on?"

Taking her hostility as a side effect of the three A.M wake up call, the Medical Examiner quickly moved to a new topic, "Well, I'm sure you know I didn't call you in to talk about that, so, let me show you what I brought you here for." With that the cop on that side stood from his spot sitting atop the metal table and moved closer to his girlfriend. Beside her as she lifted the sheet from the covered body, he watched Maddie's eyes go cold at the sight of her friend's corpse. Covered only by two well placed white cloths that did a minimal job of obscuring the view of the child's body. The sight was extremely alarming to even the experienced crime scene goers, but even more so to an unexpecting viewer.

But it was a necessary fright. Not only was Jessie dead, but her entire body was covered in blackened veins that webbed every inch of her skin. The nettin of this disturbing sight caused an uncountable number of questions in both Beckett and Castle's minds. "Lanie," Kate started, "what happened? What the hell could cause this?"

The M.E took a breath before saying something she'd never have dreamed she'd ever say. "An airborne toxin called Hexatain. It kills red blood cells and white blood cells, turning blood into a combination of nutrients, waste, oxygen and carbon dioxide sludge. She died of it within minutes when she was exposed. This combined with her internal and external injuries finally killed her."

The endless list of questions danced in the air, leaving an already weakened detective dazed. Castle spoke up for his lover, "Do we have any idea how he got a hold of it? I mean, in all of my years of being a mystery writer I've never heard of it, so it must be extremely rare."

"It's more than extremely rare, Castle," Esposito informed quickly, "It's supposed to be unobtainable. There isn't supposed to be any of it anywhere." Considering it was obvious that he was the only one who knew about it, he continued after taking a breath, "When the U.N. agreed to get rid of its chemical weapons, this toxin was supposed to be completely eliminated. It was considered to unstable and dangerous to be left in storage, so every country, including the U.S. was supposed to destroy it. Militaries were supposedly the only groups to have any, and the only groups to know how to make more."

Castle jumped in at the end of his friend's explanation, "So this guy we're dealing with. He could be military."

Beckett came back from the haze of shock and stated, "He would've had to been high up in the ranks, too. I mean, I'm guessing the location of this toxin and its makeup weren't common knowledge to every soldier."

"Not only would he have to have been high up, but he'd have to still be in the military. According to my guy, in order to make the thing, you'd need access to an advanced chemistry lab," Javier informed.

Maddie then spoke up, "There's a military lab about three hours outside the city that most likely has everything you'd need." When she received looks of curiosity and surprise, she further explained, "I'm in advanced Chemistry for an already advanced school. Our first semester field trip was to the military lab to learn about the chemical weapons and types of bombs they stored there. It was an awesome field trip, even though I didn't learn much."

Moving past the abnormality of this statement, Beckett inferred, "So he's either still in the military, or he can get in and out of a military base without anyone even knowing or caring he was there. Is that what we're saying here?"