Logs:Unbloody Murder

Unbloody Murder
CN corpse, wounds, references to murder and exsanguination
Dramatis Personae Blink, Joshua	2021-12-16 "How many exsanguinations do you get before it's a spree?" (followed by a chat with Dusk)
Location <NYC> Langone Medical Center, Morgue - Kips Bay
This is a large, modern facility, clean and well-ordered with example tables, gurneys, and, rolling carts of medical implements in gleaming stainless steel. The forensic pathologist leading her two guests passes through the presently empty expanse of the morgue proper and pushes through a set of doors leading into the adjoining Forensic Pathology Center. She's a dark skinned woman in a white lab coat over cheerful Christmas-themed red scrubs, covered with snowmen and Christmas trees and wrapped presents, the badge on an extendable lanyard that she uses to gain access identifies her bored-looking ID photo as Adama Holbrook, M.D. The Forensic Pathology Center is smaller, but also spotless and cutting edge. It is slightly more inhabited, though the inhabitant is lying on an exam table under a sheet at the far end of the lab. "We ain't got to work on him yet, medical examiner been stuck in meetings half the day." She leads them up to the table and grasps the edge of the sheet, stopping just short of twitching it back. "I know you seen plenty, but your partner there looking kinda green already." She looks at the "green one", with her disturbing, nearly all-green eyes, unnatural purple cast to her skin, arcane geometric facial markings, long pointed ears then quickly looks away. "That was a bad choice of words, but what I mean is, you best be ready, this gon' be mad gruesome." The pathologist tugs the sheet down to reveal a head with sunken cheeks, neck deflated and strange, the skin waxy and sickly pale all over. Blink is not actually looking green except in that her rich purple mandarin tunic is trimmed in forest green with matching frog buttons along the front wrap and, of course, her unnatural eyes. She is looking kind of uncomfortable, but nods firmly at the technician's warning. "Thank you. I'm ready." When the corpse is revealed, she manages not to shrink back against the wall, though not to stop her hands glowing faintly purple. She nods again. "Alright, um how did he..." Blink trails off, uncertain, then shoots her partner an imploring look. "Maybe you should handle the questions and..." Her gesture at the corpse, staying as far from it as she can manage without actually moving. "...other stuff." Joshua has been quiet as they trail alongside the pathologist, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, head occasionally bobbing along to indicate he is still listening. "Wellp." His slouched-shoulder, droopy-eyed posture doesn't much change when the sheet comes off. He just purses his lips, blows out a slow breath. Shoots a glance to Blink -- first her face, then her hands, then her face again. There's a silent lift of eyebrows, questioning, but when she doesn't immediately yeet herself or her lunch out of there he seems content to continue on to: "Be a lot we won't know till after they're done with him but who found him? Where?" Adama sighs. "Yeah, 'welp' is about the size of it. We may not know for sure yet, but missing all that blood sure didn't do him no favors. This was the only injury I saw on the intake sweep." She pulls the sheet down further to expose the dead man's right arm. There's a tattoo on the upper arm of a skull wearing a helmet with an iron cross, two rifles crossed beneath, distorted by the shrinkage of underlying tissue. The lower arm is circled by another tattoo of barbed wire styled like DNA, the barbs "piercing" the flesh, "blood" welling out. That's about the only blood in sight, though. Five long, parallel gashes from the crook of the elbow to the wrist mars the already shriveled ink, but the exposed muscle underneath is as pale and bloodless as the rest of the cadaver's skin. "You know Freddy the Poet over Coronaville or whatever the hell they're calling that encampment on 24th now? Poor guy found this in a dumpster under the High Line and just about lost his mind." The pathologist pulls on a pair of lavender nitrile gloves and peels back the edge of the deepest wound so the light falls better on the cross-section of bloodless tissue. "I got no idea what made these cuts -- but not a blade, it's too wide." She looks up at Joshua. "I'd almost say animal teeth or claws, but that don't explain how all his blood is gone. You heard about the other one like this?" Blink inches closer to the table when the pathologist shows them the wound(s). "That would be...a lot of teeth or claws, too." She looks down at her hand -- no longer glowing! -- and waggle the fingers as if to compare her own relative lack of claws. "Don't morticians remove all the blood from bodies before they embalm them? Could whoever did this have used that kind of technology?" "Poor Freddy," kind of murmured, sotto voce. "Do know some pretty shady funeral homes, but there's selling dead people's rolexes and then there's --" Joshua spreads his hands, indicating the mangled and desiccated corpse in front of him. His eyes have skimmed past the injuries, fixing on the tattoos with a small frown. He pulls out his cell phone, snaps a quick picture of the ink. He looks up quickly, one eyebrow quirked. "Another? Shit. No. How long ago?" Now he is studying the wounds, lips pressing thin. "How many exsanguinations do you get before it's a spree?" Adama shakes her head slowly. "Morticians use embalming fluid to push the blood out. Whatever vampire movies tell you, it's actually pretty damn hard to suck the blood out of a body without displacing it with nothing." She steps back to give Joshua -- and presumably Blink, little though she looks eager to get any closer -- space to look, pushing a rolling supply cart with a box of nitrile gloves toward him. "Last week I think? It was down the Kings County center, but I heard some gum-flapping about it. Guy's girlfriend found him at home with his throat cut and all his blood drained out. The lady claimed it was a hate crime because he was a mutant." She glances to Blink, then quickly away. "I doubt that motivated the boys in blue quite like she was hoping." Blink may not look eager, but she actually does edge closer. She keeps her hands firmly to herself, though. "I would bet real money they'll just call it 'mutant-on-mutant violence' and increase patrols in 'affected neighborhoods'." Her brows also gather into a frown as she follows Joshua's focus to the tattoos again. "Probably the same with this guy, unless he's human?" She sounds a bit doubtful, eyes fixing on the barbed DNA wire. "What, you mean MAD wasn't all over it? I'm shocked." Joshua does take a pair of gloves, snapping them on and moving closer to the body. He's careful as he gently inspects the wounds, the bloodless tissue there. "You really think a human's signing up to etch that on them? Can't imagine the cops are gonna push it to the top of their priority list that someone's bloodletting freaks. -- Might be a panic in the community, this gets out." His brows have rumpled when he straightens, carefully balling one glove inside-out into the other when he removes them. "Thanks," he says to Adama. "You hear of any others, I'd be grateful for a ring." And, casual, to Blink: "... you talk to Dusk lately?"