Project Orpheus: A Tale of Blood and Feathers

Chapter 5: The Philosopher

Michael strode through halls of the university campus, one mission on his mind. It had taken a lot of effort on his part, but he had finally gotten everyone involved to agree to getting a philosopher specializing in ethics to come and examine the park, too. Noh's objections were easy enough to understand, she was honest with them. She found the idea trite and annoying. There's nothing a moral philosopher could have to comment on the place that they couldn't know simply by hearing about the premise. Or, that's how Noh saw it anyway. But Michael knew that this would be good for the appearance. People had heard of this sort of thing before, so having someone who could assure it was all in the up and up, and that Noh was a crazy genius and not just crazy, would be good.

Chester's complaints had been harder to cess out. He remembered when he had first sent him the e-mail suggesting a tour of the facility for a number of people to just show off what they had, he had been initially receptive - except for that particular condition. He spent a month trying to explain to him why it would be useful and why it should be done, but Chester kept coming back with weird, strange responses. At one point he said that a philosopher would undermine the integrity of the park, and when Michael shot the holes out of that he jumped to arguing that park didn't need a philosopher to vouch for it because it was so obviously a moral and good thing.

Eventually, he had gotten them both to just agree. The next part had been finding the victim, and that had frankly been just as infuriating.

Myrtle Dreyfus was a well loved woman in her field, a very intelligent individual who not only taught ethics and morals but had a specific eye towards the morality of animal care. She was the perfect choice for this little event, but she was also notoriously shy.

Sure, it was said, with her students she was energetic and playful and kind, but she loathed the spotlight and in one of her books, Thinking Like Ants, she had even made a remark about how she was glad that she was primarily known outside her work environs through books, as it meant a lot of people didn't recognize her on the street.

The University of Munich apparently had respected her wishes not to be bothered by random outsiders, especially lawyers, so when he started trying to contact her his only response had been radio silence for a good two weeks. Eventually he managed to get a hold of her e-mail directly, and contact her personally. When he had explained the actual premise of what he was planning to her, she seemed receptive, and the two of them arranged for a meeting. Thankfully, Myrtle could speak fluent English, because he did not know a lick of German.

Thankfully he wouldn't need to be here long. He made his way around and to the office labeled with Myrtle's name, and knocked on the door.

A knock came at her door. She should have been expecting it, really, but she had lost track of the time while reviewing one of her student's essays. She had an appointment with that Michael Geiger fellow today. She took in a breath through her nose, and out through her mouth, before calling out.

"Come in!" She called.

The door opened, revealing a stocky man on the other side with a rather frizzy beard of curly, red hair and pale white skin. He wore a nice dark green suit with a black tie and white undershirt. He had green eyes that seemed to be perpetually tired, probably with age.

Probably like hers, then.

He sat in the chair across from her, holding out a hand. "Hello, it's finally nice to meet you in person, Dr. Dreyfus."

"No, the pleasure is all mine, Mr. Geiger. So, I read your e-mail about this project and I'm...frankly a little shocked by all of this."

Michael smiled and nodded, leaning back in the chair. "Yeah, both of them - Noh and Daniels - are strange."