“This job is nuts.” Charlotte looked up at the sun hovering over her head as a trail of smoke followed her voice. The hand holding her soothing addiction quivered slightly. “I stand correct, Eve, the scarier lot are the living, not the dead.”

Six hours ago.

“Alright, turn the recording device on. It’s on that wall,” Dr. Murakuma pointed to a big door at the end of the room, “turn it on, boy.”

Dr. Murakuma started to inspect the dog’s dead body after Charlotte clicked the switch. He started by slicing parts of its torso and looking at the mess inside of it. He said that as things were, he wouldn’t be able to do an accurate diagnosis of its death, so he went out of the room to the office they just came from.

After a minute or so, he came back with an electric saw with a fine blade in his hands. He cut the animal’s body in half and then used two planks to tear apart its flattened interior. He took out bones, unrecognizable organs and tissues out of it, speaking of the procedure he took, why he did so and what they meant at the moment of its death.

After fumbling with its torso for more than half an hour, he tore apart one of the places which remained intact from the heavy impact its body suffered, one of its legs, and started to examine it on another table Charlotte didn’t see at first, this time he did with small scalpel and fine tweezers.

He finished the inspection after an hour and patted Charlotte’s shoulder with his bloodied hands.

“Good job, boy. It’s been a while since I got a body as bad as this one, though it’s the first time I get a dog’s. Good job holding it. Help me with it a little more, let’s store it in a proper place.” He turned around and dragged the table where the main body was towards the room the big white door led to. “You carry the small one.”

Charlotte’s job during the doctor’s work was simple. She only had to bring tools when asked, clean them after he used them and help him hold parts which were too difficult for him to do alone. She touched her shoulder and felt her stomach revolt at the red taint which remained on her hand. Shaking her head, she pushed the small table.

The opposite wall of the room was full of small, heavy looking doors. They were metallic with a solid handle to open each of them. Dr. Murakuma was in front of a recently opened one and was in the middle of pushing the top of the table where the dead dog was into it.

“These are kept frozen to preserve the body, you see, in case I’m requested to do another autopsy. Bring that one here, there’s enough room for it in this one.”

After he stored the dog’s body, he walked to the left wall and brought out a paper stored in a small compartment. He wrote a few words on it and then studied it for a while.

“Alright, we’ll continue with Paul’s. He was killed two weeks ago, an agent of us. Apparently, a group of people stabbed him to death. I already looked through those, so we won’t be looking at its torso anymore. What I’m concerned now is a small injury I found as I finished with him, on his head. We’ll be working on it.”

He stored the paper back on its compartment and walked to the mobile table where the dog’s torso was before. Dragging it to another metallic door, he opened it and brought out a body. If not for the fact that its color was whitish blue and there were no extremities attached to it, Charlotte would have thought the dead man was sleeping.

She shook her head.

He put the body on the table and brought it back to the autopsy room. He looked through the dead man’s head and when he found the injury he previously mentioned, he asked Charlotte for a scalpel and cut a square around it. He removed the skin and skimmed through the skull. After a while of speaking his thoughts on the injury, he requested a scanner and started to see the internal parts of it. He then brought out a smaller version of the electric saw he used before and cut the part of the skull he just cleaned out of skin. After looking through it with some tools he brought, he cut all the skull in half, including its face.

He studied it for more than two hours, cutting things here and there. At the end he took the brain out and left it on the scanning device as he continued to speak about his findings.

He then put everything back in place and brought the body to its resting place. Before he went back to his office, he threw away the surgery gloves, the mask and the cap in a trash bin. Charlotte followed his actions and threw away the disposable materials.

“Good. That’s it for now. All that’s left is for me to make a report out of all the things of today, you can rest until we get more things to do.”

After an hour of her crouching down in a corner of the office, Dr. Murakuma told her she had an hour to relax outside and that she could go out to have lunch.

In the restaurant next to the building, she asked for three dishes to eat. She couldn’t finish the first one, though. Her stomach refused the food and almost made her throw up. She asked for her food to be packed in a box for her to take home and went out of the restaurant, finding a convenience store, she bought a pack of cigarettes to calm her restless mind.

“I’m not fit for this, huh.”

She entered the 13th room on the sixth floor and walked past the room of pictures of dead bodies and notes on them.

“Uhm, Dr. Murakuma?”

“Yes?” He turned his head from the screen he was looking at and stopped moving his hands.

“Regarding the test for working here, I was thinking that I…”

“Test?” He interrupted her words. “Oh, yes. I was supposed to make a test for you to work with me. Yes, I believe you passed it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes. Normally, because people are not familiar with this kind of job, they freak out or become mentally unstable. You’re doing pretty fine, or at least you’re hanging on it pretty well. Yes. You passed the test. I’ll be happy to have you around, keep the good work up.”

“I-I see…”

“Hmm? What’s that? Did you smoke?”

“A-ah, y-yes, sorry.”

“No, no, don’t worry. Just be sure the smell is gone after you smoke every time. Go wash your hands and mouth in there… The bad thing are your clothes, well, I’m not expecting any new subject today, so it’ll be fine. Try to get off the smell as well as you can, next time bring a change of clothes if you’re smoking at lunch, alright?”

“Alright.” Charlotte nodded and walked to the handwasher in the still dirty surgery room.

She walked back to the office smelling her hands. Looking around the room, she found the spot she sat in before and went to it.

“I was thinking,” he started as he followed her with his eyes, “it’s really dull for you to wait all the time without doing anything, right? You can read any of the books I have in that shelf. You can also ask for those you want to read and don’t see them in there, I’ll see if I can get those for you.”

“T-thanks.” Charlotte stood as fast as she could and walked to the bookshelf, skimming through its contents.

The major part of the books were about psychological diagnosis, medicine or philosophy. There were some about math or computers and one on mysticism. She chose one she found interesting.

“’Anatomy of a Dead Body’, huh? That’s good, a good place to start indeed. Alright. Anything you want that’s not there?”

“Hmm, I’d like books on augmented people, like, the medicine and techniques behind that.”

“Augmented ones, I see. You wanted to go there, too, right?”

“Erm, well. Yes.” She scratched her cheek as her eyes wandered to the side.

“Don’t be ashamed. You can try going there after you think you know enough, I can always ask for another assistant. I also know you took a test there and in the computer’s area. Even when Tom said you would be great for his team, you turned his offer down. It really makes me wonder why you want to go to the augmented department to the point you even avoided the computer’s.”

“W-well, since I got to know about the augmented, I’ve always felt curious about it. And that curiosity just escalated to the point on which I wanted to know how to make those machines and the structure they have, how to work with them and how to improve them.”

He caressed his chin in thought for a moment. “I understand. I’ll help you get books related to that.”

“Really?! Thank you!”

“No problem. I’ll continue with my work; you can read any book you want in the meantime. You don’t have to ask for permission.” Dr. Murakuma tossed her a pair of keys after he finished his words, turning his attention to his screen and continued to type things on it.

Charlotte grabbed the keys in the air by reflex, almost letting them fall to the floor. She then turned around and opened the glass on the shelf and took the book she told Dr. Murakuma she wanted to read.

The remaining part of the afternoon went on without new bodies for them to study. When the clock pointed to five in the afternoon, Dr. Murakuma opened his mouth. “I believe that’d be all. You can go back now. Remember to be here at eight sharp tomorrow. Even if we don’t have to do an autopsy, it’s better to be prepared.”

Charlotte lifted her head to Dr. Murakuma’s words and stood from her spot in the corner of the room. “Understood.” She then put the book back on the shelf, handed the keys back to him and went out after a few more words with him.

After she left the room, Dr. Murakuma shook his head as his hand tapped on the table. “To think I’d accept that clear lie of an excuse so easily… My age is finally catching me, huh. Anyway, I need to finish this to continue with my job.”

I guess this job’s not as bad as I thought at first. Charlotte smiled as she crossed the doors of the building

The following two days went without any new body arriving in the autopsy room, Charlotte spent all her time reading continuously on her spot without new cases on the office.

On Friday, though, as she arrived to Dr. Murakuma’s office, she found him in front of the door to the surgery room with his white lab coat on. “Put everything on, we’ve work to do.”

“Yes sir!”

Charlotte went past the glass door in the surgery room wearing a lab coat fit for her body that arrived the day before, it went down to her thighs, almost to her knees. She looked at the body on the table, Dr. Murakuma had lowered the cover from its face already. She sucked in air when she saw a clear hole between its brows, blood still fresh on it.

“He’s killed in action this morning.” He started after the recording device was activated. “He was out in a mission in this sector of the city and after our people lost contact with him, he was found dead after half an hour of search. It’s only been an hour since then.” He read through a note on his body. “We got only a couple of hours before the body becomes completely rigid, so we have to get all the information we can now. And then tomorrow or the day after that we’ll continue with it.”

He started scanning the head, stating out what he saw and his thoughts on the matter. He then did the same to the rest of the body, without finding out an additional injury. Half an hour had gone by when he finished inspecting the body. During this time, Charlotte just stood at his side taking mental notes of the procedure he did. The terms he used, the method to get an answer based on the state the body was in and how the dead man’s last breaths took place, according to him.

He took out the bullet carefully with a scalpel. “This is a strange bullet; it has some unusual hole in the middle. It’ll require further analysis. I’ll send this to be inspected.” He handed it to Charlotte who put it inside a plastic bag, and continued his manual inspection.

Charlotte sat in her corner of the office with a book on the psychological perspective of a criminal and read with vigor. They finished the autopsy a few minutes prior and didn’t have anything else to do.

“I see you’re much better than before.” Dr. Murakuma started, interrupting Charlotte’s reading time. “I thought you’d be more shaken than before, considering it was a recently dead body.”

“That, well, I just prepared myself for it. I’m greatly shaken, though.” Her hands holding the book trembled slightly, as well as her voice; she was the only one who noticed it.

With White Prism’s help, she reenacted the few times they had been near dead bodies. That time she almost got kidnapped, Gut’s dead body, the two three days ago and some others which were alive, but just barely. She didn’t have any problem moving a copy of her body and bisecting, opening and moving things inside the bodies. She felt everything with her copy but she didn’t feel discouraged once she started imitating the actions Dr. Murakuma did.

There were two problems, however. The first one was an aversion at the beginning, she had to convince herself to do it for almost an hour before she could start. The second one occurred the first time she finished practicing and came back to reality, becoming aware of the disaster her body had gone through. Her real body was trembling uncontrollably and there was vomit beside her. It took her half an hour to calm down her breathing to a normal degree and another half for her to be able to barely move.

After she tidied the sofa she was on and smoked her nerves out, she thought to herself. So my body and my mind can be disconnected… Maybe that time where I couldn’t do it was my body being against it and when I was able to do it I actually severed the connection… I better remember this.

She didn’t try to practice more that night. She did it the next two days, however, in a more reserved way to avoid any .

“Then, are you saying, had you prepared yourself three days ago, it wouldn’t have been like that?”

“Possibly, I don’t know. The thing is, I thought the test would be more on the theoretical side.”

“I see, sorry for that. Oh, by the way, I’ve been thinking, yeah. Why do you keep yourself in that corner?”

“There’s no place for me to sit, you know?”

“Yes, but why that corner?”

“Hmm, I don’t know? I chose it randomly and now it’s become kind of my corner?”

“Alright, I’ll call for someone to bring you a chair and a desk, is that ok?”

“Of course! Thanks!” She smiled and returned her eyes to the book for a while. “Hey, is it always this dull here?”

Dr. Murakuma halted the movement of his hands and looked at her, after a moment of holding their gazes together he smiled. “What? You want more of our people to die?”

Charlotte closed the book and waved it. “Wh-no! I mean, considering the crimes that’re always happening, you’d think we’d have more dead ones in here…” She lowered her gaze to the floor between them.

“Hehe. I know you didn’t mean it that way, I know. I told you before, remember? I told you about that assistant of mine, he had that bored look all the time. All of the time, except when bodies came. He’d become energetic all of a sudden and even tried to do my job the last few weeks. He’d been a serious problem. I was seriously concerned about it, you know? But that’s not what you asked me. But first, let me ask you one thing, whose bodies do you think we deal with?”

“Whose bodies… Isn’t that everyone who is brought here…? No, you wouldn’t be asking that if that was the case… Oh, the agents of the organization?”

“Quite close, but no.” He shook his head and adjusted his body to face her properly. “We check every body that’s brought to us. Most of the time it’s the dead members of Luxuria. But you saw it on your first day, right? They sent us a dead dog. I’m not a vet, you know? But they keep sending all the dead they want checked. And like that one, there’re multiple exceptions. Those who got tangled in a fight with us and they found something worth inspecting, those who’re friends with us and died by some accident, and much more cases that’re hard to count.”

“I see…”

“No. You still don’t get it.”

“Huh?”

“I take pride in being able to read people. I know you’re thinking that if that’s the case, why are there still so little cases, right?” He waited a moment for Charlotte to nod her head. “It’s simple. You know this city is divided by powers. You can say it’s divided in five, or six. You can also say it’s divided in twelve or thirteen sectors; and both would be right. Why do you think this autopsy center is in this part of the city? In the Alliance area, I mean. It’s because it’d be too dangerous to walk with a body in areas other than this kind of more regulated one. If that’s the case, then it’s easy to think of something. Wouldn’t this one be too far apart from other areas? Yes, this one is too far. In total, Luxuria have four autopsy offices. And that’s the real answer to your question.”

“I-I see.”

“You’re still not convinced?” Dr. Murakuma frowned at her.

“No, no. It’s just, I’m thinking about what you told me. Placing it together.”

“Ohoho, I understand.” He nodded and turned to face his screen.

“Now that I think about it. Do I have to come tomorrow?”

“Hmm? Of course. Why?”

“Well, I have an appointment with this girl… Is it possible for me not to come?”

“That’ll be difficult. At the very least, you’re not required to come on Sunday, but tomorrow. No. You have to come. At least in the morning. At what time you got that date?”

“In the morning… Oh, it’s around three, if it’s only in the morning it’s alright.”

They talked for some time about the schedule she had to follow and some unrelated topic concerning the next day’s date until Dr. Murakuma exclaimed. “Would you look at the time? It’s past noon! You can go and have your lunch.”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t notice.” Charlotte stood and left the book on the shelf before she went to the exit door, turning around as a thought came through her mind. “Don’t you go out to eat?”

“No, I got used to eat only twice a day since I was little. It’s become a habit now. Habits are things that grow with time and are quite difficult to change. I eat before coming here and after I arrive home. Why? Do you want me to accompany you?”

“Well, it’s not that. I was just curious that you never left to eat.”

“Now you know. Don’t fall in that kind of bad habit. Well, have a good meal.”

Charlotte nodded before turning around and walked out of the room.

The rest of the day went uneventful, as well as next day’s work. For some reason, Dr. Murakuma didn’t work on the dead man. Which left Charlotte without any problems for the afternoon’s date.

She came to her house after the morning shift and made a big meal for herself. She then dressed with a shirt and loose pants. Checking herself on the mirror she realized her dark brown hair had grown a lot. It was past shoulder length and had started to curve on its ends. She caressed it and searched for something to tie her hair without success, so she cut a thin cord out of one of the dresses she still had and tied her hair in a low ponytail.

She went to their meeting place with a cap over her head and some cash to spare. I think 100 FC is enough, but you’re never sure. She arrived to the station a few minutes before 3 and waited for Betty to arrive.

“Hiro!”

Charlotte turned her head to the voice and lifted up her arm to wave at the girl coming her way. “Hey there, Betty.”

“Hi!” She shortened their distance with haste as she was still more than twenty meters away. “Sorry, did you have to wait a lot?”

“Not at all. I was a little worried, though.” Charlotte’s lips curved to a grin.

“Huh? Why? I’m not one to break a promise!”

“Not that. It’s just, look at yourself.” She pointed to Betty with a finger as the palm looked at the sky and her eyes closed in a smirk. “You’re so stunning that it’d have been bad something happened to you while coming.”

“Oh, that…” Betty halted her steps and looked at the ground, her left hand tightening on the white purse hanging down her right shoulder. “Well, it’s true that around here it’s a little bit dangerous, but I thought there wouldn’t be any problem. I’ll take note on it.”

Uh, that’s bad. Cultural thing, maybe? Charlotte’s eyes rapidly studied the girl for a topic change.

Betty was, as Charlotte described, stunning. She wore a light caramel single piece dress tied on her waist by a black fabric strap. It ended with frills over her knees, which were covered with black veiled stockings going under her dress. Her feet were strapped with laces coming from the red sandals she had, making a perfect match to her hair with the braids on both sides of her head.

I wonder how I would look in those. When things calm down, I’d like to try something similar…Catching her thoughts, she shook her head. Not now! I want to live this from the other side!

“Uhm, what? Do I look weird?” Betty asked as her body grew smaller by Charlotte’s sight.

“N-not at all! I was just mesmerized by your looks.”

“Is that so? Hehe.” A slight pink colored her face as her smile widened.

“Anyway, let’s get going!” Charlotte grabbed Betty’s hand and walked to the subway’s station.