Mercy 6 by David Bajo

screen displays. Everything was there for him. Mendenhall started to explain, then caught herself. This was Mullich. She returned his gaze and drew back from the desk, letting him see. Claiborne and Silva continued their work, innocent.
    Mullich stood above Mendenhall and watched the loop.
    Intermittently he glanced back to the bodies. Then he moved to Claiborne’s desk, studied the scans showing the primary trauma patterns.
    When Mendenhall joined him, she said nothing.
    â€œIn these two,” Mullich pointed to the scans of Dozier and Verdasco, “the cone is reversed.”
    â€œIt’s not the cone we’re—I’m—focused on.” Mendenhall found a laser pen on Claiborne’s desk. She drew the bead of light across both diagonals, slashing the brainstems. Then she aimed it at the scans of the frontal lobes, Verdasco’s lung, Dozier’s liver, the vague clouds in each.
    â€œThese show incipient hemorrhaging in peripheral organs.
    Major organs.” She let Mullich see, just see.
    â€œYou think that,” Mullich pointed toward the video, “happened to them?” He held his hand toward the bodies.
    â€œNot exactly.” Mendenhall led him to Verdasco. Claiborne stepped aside, one eyebrow raised as he looked at her. Silva pressed Verdasco’s chin, extending the throat.
    â€œThe body reacts in known ways, according to preset nerve patterns. We develop these as we go through life. Kisses, caresses, slaps, pinpricks, falls, dives into water that violently strain our necks. Innocent, little things we never really register. Things that begin in utero.
    â€œThese bodies didn’t roil like that gel block. The nerve patterns just reacted as if they did, as if they would. As if they were shot through. The most vital and liquid organs anticipated hydrostatic shock, began to hemorrhage along the far nerve endings. The end of a whip. But without the whip.”
    She lunged toward Mullich, her fingers flashing straight to his eyes. He drew back. Silva gasped.
    â€œLike that,” said Mendenhall, keeping her hand raised, her fingers spiked before his eyes. “Actually, exactly that.”
    She lowered her hand. “Your body registered that all over the place. You closed your eyes, obviously. But feel. Look.” She motioned toward Mullich’s hands which had balled into fists.
    â€œAnd your heart,” she said as Mullich looked at his fists, opened them. “Well, maybe not your heart.” She motioned toward Silva.
    â€œBut hers, yes. And your toes, I bet.”
    Mullich had gone slightly tiptoe. He lowered himself.
    â€œThat’s her theory,” said Claiborne. “We’re testing the tissue samples. We have lances from all areas of hemorrhage.”
    â€œI’m right until they prove me wrong,” said Mendenhall.
    She sensed Claiborne’s amusement.
    â€œAt least that’s how it should be,” she told Mullich. “But stupid me. I reversed everything, right from the start. I made that call. So they get to be right until they prove themselves wrong.”
19.
    She hadn’t realized the dead were leaving. She didn’t know until she stood in the lower bay with Silva and Mullich, until after she had followed them past the turn to the morgue. After the turn her steps numbed, turned to dreams. Silva and Mullich were in full cover, including caps. Mendenhall suddenly felt naked. She pulled up her mask, tried to disguise her ignorance. Silva didn’t seem to notice as she stood near the sealed slider, hands crossed.
    Mullich did, watched Mendenhall adjust her mask, tighten her gloves.
    The bodies were being turned over to Disease Control. Claiborne had shooed her and Mullich away, away with Silva. He remained with the bodies in the lab.
    Mendenhall took her place in line by the exit, pretending.
    Something clanged on the other side. Silva pressed the buzzer.
    They heard the turning of the outside crank-handle. The