Below the Surface [CSI/The X-Files; Grissom/Catherine, Mulder/Scully]
TITLE: Below the Surface
CHAPTER 15: Blood Work
FANDOM(S): CSI, The X-Files
PAIRING(S): Mulder/Scully, Grissom/Catherine
SPOILERS: [CSI: Fourth season]; [X-Files: Seventh season]
RATING: R (for language, violence, etc.)
SUMMARY: "So, in essence, you're saying we're looking for some type of mutant. A chimerical figure that exists only in the minds of crypto-zoologists."
*****
"Agent Mulder, just what exactly are you hoping to find?" Grissom asked, quickening his stride to follow the lanky agent down the halls of CSI.
"I have no idea," Mulder called over his shoulder, meandering down the halls toward the morgue. "But I've got a feeling we're missing something."
Grissom couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at this. "Well, yes. About ninety percent of the evidence."
The double doors to the morgue swung open forcefully as Mulder pushed his way inside, nearly startling Doc Robbins in the process. "Doctor Robbins," he greeted the silver-haired gentlemen with a brief nod.
"Agent Mulder, what can I do for you?" he asked, eyeing the agent warily before his eyes moved toward the doors, where Grissom was just entering looking slightly out of breath. "Gil?"
"Doc, we're looking for the Lake Mead victims," Grissom answered the good doctor's silent question.
"Well, the majority of them have already been sent off for burial or cremation at the families' requests. Four remain from the last seven you pulled from the lake."
"Just four?" Mulder looked incredulous.
Robbins shrugged. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but once the family requests burial or cremation, we can no longer legally hold the bodies."
"Dammit!" Mulder ran a hand through his short-cropped brown hair in frustration, sighing.
Grissom furrowed his brow at this action, then shook it off and turned back to Doc Robbins. "You've still got the notes from the other autopsies though, right?"
"Abbreviated as they are, yes."
Mulder spun on his heel, one hand already planted on his hip in his bout with frustration, the other extended as he pointed at the doctor. "We'll need to see those notes right away."
"Of course. I just have to print them, and they're yours."
In the two-minute wait for the notes, Mulder paced almost agitatedly while Grissom and Doc Robbins watched him and continually exchanged glances, questioning his antsy behavior. "Did you take photographs?" Mulder asked as the autopsy reports finished printing.
"They're in the folders, where the autopsy reports will be, Agent Mulder," Doc told him calmly, though Grissom could detect a hint of irritation in the doctor's tone; Mulder's exuberance probably having grated on him already.
Once through handing the autopsy reports over to Mulder and Grissom, Doc Robbins bade them farewell and headed for the door, his shift over. When he was gone, Grissom turned to Mulder with a furrowed brow. "So what exactly are you looking for?"
"Anything," Mulder replied, hurriedly shuffling through the autopsy reports and photographs. He glanced up at the graveshift supervisor. "That thing tore into Scully. Not just able to suck blood out of her, but something actually cut her skin."
"Like a tooth?" Grissom asked, the wrinkles in his forehead deepening as his confusion grew.
"Or something closely resembling it," he muttered. Having gathered all the autopsy photos, he laid them out on the nearby counter, directing Grissom's attention to them briefly before speaking. "Five years ago, Scully and I investigated this case about sewer workers in Jersey getting killed or injured down in the sewers. When one of the surviving sewer workers was given a cursory exam, there was a large bite mark on his left shoulder, that sorta looked like this."
Mulder immediately pulled a pad of paper from his breast pocket and grabbed a nearby pen, sketching a circular-shaped mark with four linear marks inside, almost in the shape of a cross. He then slid the drawing over to Grissom, jerking his chin at it. "It's called a scolex; commonly found on various species of fluke or flatworms."
Grissom frowned as he studied the drawing. "But flukeworms don't get much bigger than the size of a ruler. The scolex on an average-sized fluke is no more than a centimeter or two in diameter."
Mulder nodded. "Yes, and yet, the bite mark from this scolex..." He tapped the drawing, "Measured eight-and-a-half inches in diameter."
Grissom shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. "Well, that's impossible."
"Impossible Grissom, and yet... possible. Don't ask me how, but that once-tiny fluke thrived in the sewage and grew to be six feet tall."
"So, in essence, you're saying we're looking for some type of mutant. A chimerical figure that exists only in the minds of crypto-zoologists." Grissom cocked his head, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he eyed the tall agent skeptically.
"Well..." Mulder shrugged, looking as if the answer was obvious. "Yeah. I mean, the swabs from the victims' navels came back human... yet no human can produce enough suction to pull all the organs from inside a body... so we're obviously looking for some sort of human being with a strange genetic mutation. A human-fluke hybrid, even."
Grissom raised an eyebrow. "And, where would someone go for information about this?"
"Are there any facilities nearby that deal with genetics? Genetic engineering, or maybe even gene therapy?"
"Check the computer," an alto voice from the doorway called out, and both men spun to see Catherine approaching. "There's bound to be something there."
Mulder nodded, then gestured to Grissom, who was already seated at the monitor in the lab. "Run a search for any hospitals or clinics dealing with genetics," he instructed, then headed over to the large silver drawers, in which the remaining Lake Mead victims lay. "Catherine, if you could help me inspect the bodies, I'd really appreciate it."
At this, the strawberry-blonde furrowed her brow. "Inspect them for what?"
Grissom held up Mulder's drawing immediately. "Bite marks, apparently."
"Bite marks? But Agent Mulder--"
"I know we've already conjectured that this thing sucks the organs out of its victims, but as I was explaining to Grissom..." he shot the elder criminalist a brief look before turning back to Catherine, "Whatever grabbed onto Scully today put a wide gash in her stomach." He nodded to her. "You saw it. If that thing had just a sucker, it wouldn't have done that to her." He pulled open one of the drawers, grimacing at the smell that followed... and pulled back the sheet on one of the cadavers.
Catherine appeared at his side, and the pair began looking over the body. "I don't see anything, Agent Mulder," Catherine murmured after a minute or so had gone by. "A few lacerations here and there, but there's no saying it was caused by a tooth of some kind."
"Here." Catherine glanced up to find the lanky agent pointing to the victim's navel, and she leaned close to inspect it. "Just inside the navel--four small lacerations, all of equal length and of an equal distance apart."
"So what we're looking for is..." Catherine raised her eyebrows.
Mulder shrugged. "That's still unknown. It could be a fluke or flatworm, or a leech. What we could do is run the--"
Mulder's thought was interrupted by a cell phone ringing loudly in the morgue. Catherine and Grissom exchanged a glance before he reached down and pulled out his phone, flipping it open. "Yeah, Grissom." After a pause, he nodded slowly. "Okay... yes. Alright, thank you."
After hanging up, he glanced to Catherine and Mulder. "That was tox. They've finally finished doing the bloodwork for the newest seven victims."
"And?"
"There were sizeable amounts of an anticoagulant present in each victim, as well as mass amounts of histamine."
Catherine furrowed her brow, crossing her arms over her chest. "And just what the hell does that mean?"
"Anticoagulants prevent blood clotting," Grissom replied. "And histamine causes an increase of permeability in blood vessels. It also causes the normal symptoms of an allergic reaction, like watering eyes or a runny nose."
"Anticoagulants and histamine..." Mulder murmured, brows knit together pensively. He worried his bottom lip with his teeth and planted his hands on his hips once more, pacing the length of the morgue a good four times before almost abruptly snapping out of it. "I gotta go see Scully."
"Agent Mulder--"
"Keep looking for that genetics stuff. I'll call you." And with that, he was out the door, leaving Catherine and Grissom to sigh and shake their heads.
A hint of an amused smirk tugged at one corner of Grissom's lips. "He kind of has a one-track mind, wouldn't you say?"
Catherine chuckled. "I dunno, Gil. Seems to me his mind has multiple tracks." She thought back to her conversation with the bed-ridden redhead at the hospital, and she smiled. "All the tracks lead to one destination, though."
TBC
CHAPTER 15: Blood Work
FANDOM(S): CSI, The X-Files
PAIRING(S): Mulder/Scully, Grissom/Catherine
SPOILERS: [CSI: Fourth season]; [X-Files: Seventh season]
RATING: R (for language, violence, etc.)
SUMMARY: "So, in essence, you're saying we're looking for some type of mutant. A chimerical figure that exists only in the minds of crypto-zoologists."
*****
"Agent Mulder, just what exactly are you hoping to find?" Grissom asked, quickening his stride to follow the lanky agent down the halls of CSI.
"I have no idea," Mulder called over his shoulder, meandering down the halls toward the morgue. "But I've got a feeling we're missing something."
Grissom couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at this. "Well, yes. About ninety percent of the evidence."
The double doors to the morgue swung open forcefully as Mulder pushed his way inside, nearly startling Doc Robbins in the process. "Doctor Robbins," he greeted the silver-haired gentlemen with a brief nod.
"Agent Mulder, what can I do for you?" he asked, eyeing the agent warily before his eyes moved toward the doors, where Grissom was just entering looking slightly out of breath. "Gil?"
"Doc, we're looking for the Lake Mead victims," Grissom answered the good doctor's silent question.
"Well, the majority of them have already been sent off for burial or cremation at the families' requests. Four remain from the last seven you pulled from the lake."
"Just four?" Mulder looked incredulous.
Robbins shrugged. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but once the family requests burial or cremation, we can no longer legally hold the bodies."
"Dammit!" Mulder ran a hand through his short-cropped brown hair in frustration, sighing.
Grissom furrowed his brow at this action, then shook it off and turned back to Doc Robbins. "You've still got the notes from the other autopsies though, right?"
"Abbreviated as they are, yes."
Mulder spun on his heel, one hand already planted on his hip in his bout with frustration, the other extended as he pointed at the doctor. "We'll need to see those notes right away."
"Of course. I just have to print them, and they're yours."
In the two-minute wait for the notes, Mulder paced almost agitatedly while Grissom and Doc Robbins watched him and continually exchanged glances, questioning his antsy behavior. "Did you take photographs?" Mulder asked as the autopsy reports finished printing.
"They're in the folders, where the autopsy reports will be, Agent Mulder," Doc told him calmly, though Grissom could detect a hint of irritation in the doctor's tone; Mulder's exuberance probably having grated on him already.
Once through handing the autopsy reports over to Mulder and Grissom, Doc Robbins bade them farewell and headed for the door, his shift over. When he was gone, Grissom turned to Mulder with a furrowed brow. "So what exactly are you looking for?"
"Anything," Mulder replied, hurriedly shuffling through the autopsy reports and photographs. He glanced up at the graveshift supervisor. "That thing tore into Scully. Not just able to suck blood out of her, but something actually cut her skin."
"Like a tooth?" Grissom asked, the wrinkles in his forehead deepening as his confusion grew.
"Or something closely resembling it," he muttered. Having gathered all the autopsy photos, he laid them out on the nearby counter, directing Grissom's attention to them briefly before speaking. "Five years ago, Scully and I investigated this case about sewer workers in Jersey getting killed or injured down in the sewers. When one of the surviving sewer workers was given a cursory exam, there was a large bite mark on his left shoulder, that sorta looked like this."
Mulder immediately pulled a pad of paper from his breast pocket and grabbed a nearby pen, sketching a circular-shaped mark with four linear marks inside, almost in the shape of a cross. He then slid the drawing over to Grissom, jerking his chin at it. "It's called a scolex; commonly found on various species of fluke or flatworms."
Grissom frowned as he studied the drawing. "But flukeworms don't get much bigger than the size of a ruler. The scolex on an average-sized fluke is no more than a centimeter or two in diameter."
Mulder nodded. "Yes, and yet, the bite mark from this scolex..." He tapped the drawing, "Measured eight-and-a-half inches in diameter."
Grissom shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. "Well, that's impossible."
"Impossible Grissom, and yet... possible. Don't ask me how, but that once-tiny fluke thrived in the sewage and grew to be six feet tall."
"So, in essence, you're saying we're looking for some type of mutant. A chimerical figure that exists only in the minds of crypto-zoologists." Grissom cocked his head, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he eyed the tall agent skeptically.
"Well..." Mulder shrugged, looking as if the answer was obvious. "Yeah. I mean, the swabs from the victims' navels came back human... yet no human can produce enough suction to pull all the organs from inside a body... so we're obviously looking for some sort of human being with a strange genetic mutation. A human-fluke hybrid, even."
Grissom raised an eyebrow. "And, where would someone go for information about this?"
"Are there any facilities nearby that deal with genetics? Genetic engineering, or maybe even gene therapy?"
"Check the computer," an alto voice from the doorway called out, and both men spun to see Catherine approaching. "There's bound to be something there."
Mulder nodded, then gestured to Grissom, who was already seated at the monitor in the lab. "Run a search for any hospitals or clinics dealing with genetics," he instructed, then headed over to the large silver drawers, in which the remaining Lake Mead victims lay. "Catherine, if you could help me inspect the bodies, I'd really appreciate it."
At this, the strawberry-blonde furrowed her brow. "Inspect them for what?"
Grissom held up Mulder's drawing immediately. "Bite marks, apparently."
"Bite marks? But Agent Mulder--"
"I know we've already conjectured that this thing sucks the organs out of its victims, but as I was explaining to Grissom..." he shot the elder criminalist a brief look before turning back to Catherine, "Whatever grabbed onto Scully today put a wide gash in her stomach." He nodded to her. "You saw it. If that thing had just a sucker, it wouldn't have done that to her." He pulled open one of the drawers, grimacing at the smell that followed... and pulled back the sheet on one of the cadavers.
Catherine appeared at his side, and the pair began looking over the body. "I don't see anything, Agent Mulder," Catherine murmured after a minute or so had gone by. "A few lacerations here and there, but there's no saying it was caused by a tooth of some kind."
"Here." Catherine glanced up to find the lanky agent pointing to the victim's navel, and she leaned close to inspect it. "Just inside the navel--four small lacerations, all of equal length and of an equal distance apart."
"So what we're looking for is..." Catherine raised her eyebrows.
Mulder shrugged. "That's still unknown. It could be a fluke or flatworm, or a leech. What we could do is run the--"
Mulder's thought was interrupted by a cell phone ringing loudly in the morgue. Catherine and Grissom exchanged a glance before he reached down and pulled out his phone, flipping it open. "Yeah, Grissom." After a pause, he nodded slowly. "Okay... yes. Alright, thank you."
After hanging up, he glanced to Catherine and Mulder. "That was tox. They've finally finished doing the bloodwork for the newest seven victims."
"And?"
"There were sizeable amounts of an anticoagulant present in each victim, as well as mass amounts of histamine."
Catherine furrowed her brow, crossing her arms over her chest. "And just what the hell does that mean?"
"Anticoagulants prevent blood clotting," Grissom replied. "And histamine causes an increase of permeability in blood vessels. It also causes the normal symptoms of an allergic reaction, like watering eyes or a runny nose."
"Anticoagulants and histamine..." Mulder murmured, brows knit together pensively. He worried his bottom lip with his teeth and planted his hands on his hips once more, pacing the length of the morgue a good four times before almost abruptly snapping out of it. "I gotta go see Scully."
"Agent Mulder--"
"Keep looking for that genetics stuff. I'll call you." And with that, he was out the door, leaving Catherine and Grissom to sigh and shake their heads.
A hint of an amused smirk tugged at one corner of Grissom's lips. "He kind of has a one-track mind, wouldn't you say?"
Catherine chuckled. "I dunno, Gil. Seems to me his mind has multiple tracks." She thought back to her conversation with the bed-ridden redhead at the hospital, and she smiled. "All the tracks lead to one destination, though."
TBC