Free Mercy 6 by David Bajo Page B

lines.
    â€œCome see,” said Mendenhall, softly, in case they were listening.
    Silva came; Claiborne remained with Verdasco. Mendenhall ran the last video again, the highest velocity.
    â€œIt’s hydrostatic shock,” Mendenhall told Silva. She felt the lab tech near her shoulder. “It shows how high-velocity projectiles, even when very small, cause peripheral damage. Extreme damage.”
    Mendenhall repeated the demo.
    â€œThe body returns to form.” Silva’s voice was plaintive.
    â€œI know that study.” Claiborne spoke without leaving his position, the direction of his voice downward. Mendenhall imagined him behind them, talking to Verdasco. “You’re fighting, Dr. Mendenhall.”
    â€œI’m not.” She ran the video again, pausing at impact, the birth of the spiral. “I’m doing what I should do at this point. My expertise.
    What I know that causes peripheral hemorrhaging. Why people die from what should be nonfatal invasion. Why bodies die from impacts to nonvital tissue. Why I have patients die from getting shot in the shoulder, the thigh, the foot. Why I had one die from a piece of glass through her bicep.”
    â€œThose are extreme velocities,” said Claiborne.
    â€œWe live in a world of extreme velocities.”
    â€œWe have no ballistic,” replied Claiborne. His voice was even lower, crouching closer to Verdasco. “We have no entry or exit.”
    â€œOkay. Okay. I’m just showing peripheral trauma. Peripheral hemorrhaging as indicator for extreme trauma. Hemorrhaging distant from the point of initiation. Bleeding in the most liquid organs.” Mendenhall pointed to the amber swirls in the corners of the gel block, drawing Silva closer. “Far perimeter clouds in the brain and liver.”
    Mendenhall winced at her own words. Metaphor indicated lack of precision, a skip in the equation.
    â€œFar perimeter clouds?” Claiborne knew what she was thinking.
    â€œOkay. Perimeter bruising.” Mendenhall turned away from the screen and looked at Claiborne, waited for him to quit Verdasco.
    After a moment he straightened and looked at her.
    â€œThat’s what you have,” she told him. “Something—a viral impact, if you want—that causes perimeter hemorrhaging in uninvolved organs. That’s a valid assumption until you find something in those peripheral tissues. Those far tissues. I think you should focus on those samples first. While Thorpe’s people go after the primary hemorrhages.”
    â€œI am Thorpe’s people.” Claiborne looked at Silva. “We are Thorpe’s people.”
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    Claiborne joined her and Silva by the laptop. They stood together beneath Mullich’s charts.
    â€œRun it again,” he said, nodding toward the laptop screen. “It’s pretty. My eyes need a break.”
    Silva was the one who tapped it into motion. They watched the pellet pass straight through the gel block, the spiral of amber distorting the whole into a sideways tornado.
    â€œI’m helping,” said Mendenhall. “Increasing efficiency.”
    â€œProviding entertainment.” Claiborne took control of the video, his hand dark and slender, freshly peeled from its glove. He made the demonstration run backward and forward, repeating. He darkened the screen, deepening the amber backlight. The impact seemed to bring the gel block to life, morphed it into a cell, quickening, seeking another.
18.
    When Mullich returned to the lab they had to explain
    themselves. Claiborne had already moved back to Verdasco’s body, drawing Silva with a nod. He must have sensed the architect’s approach, the breach in his underworld. Mendenhall sat alone by the laptop, the video still looping, caught.
    Mullich let the door ease shut behind him. He sterilized his hands with lotion, pulled on fresh gloves, all while scanning the others in the room, the