Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“That’s where you come in, Detective. You must locate Tuttle, whether dead or alive.” Thomas stood over the microscope again and studied the enemy, his eyes on the parasite under the light. “I’ve always wanted to say that—wanted, dead or alive like you Americans say.” Thomas abruptly changed his tone. “Look here, Declan, at these little beasties. There’re a few left, cannibalizing the others. We might try taking the stronger cells. See if we can save the little buggers.”

“Perhaps I should get on that search for our missing agent.” Ransom stepped toward the door, his stomach churning. “Do my part… find Tuttle, last seen aboard Titanic .”

“We’d much prefer Tuttle alive, but if so, he may prove a terrible danger to you, detective,” replied Declan, who’d returned his eyes to the scope.

“Do hold on, sir,” suggested Thomas, “and wait for what we find in Uncle Anton.”

“Why bother? You don’t need to open him up now!” countered Ransom, stepping closer. “I mean you’ve got your comparisons with the two miners. You have your aunt’s feelings to consider. You don’t need to cut on your relative.”

But it was as if the young interns, once underway with their scalpels, could not be deterred by any logic Ransom might raise.

“We could be missing the bigger picture here, Detective.” Thomas now stood over his uncle’s body with the scalpel in hand, Declan nodding beside him, encouraging him. The moment gave Ransom pause; it had him recalling two things of great precision: How Dr. Christian Fenger and Dr. Jane Tewes acted whenever given an opportunity to operate—to wield a scalpel. It would appear the scalpel spoke the same language to these young surgeons.

The scalpel sliced through Uncle Anton’s chest, and again the crackling sound beneath the blade rose to their ears. Seeping from the cut, rising bubbles and brackish fluid, but this time the fluid and bubbles proved somewhat clearer. It just about proved Declan’s theory of the sequence of how these men died. McAffey in the mine with that beast they had uncovered from the wall—which now lay within one of the freezers in the wall here, followed by O’Toole, escaping the mine, coming into contact then with Anton Fiore—each man passing the disease to the other. Or so it would appear.

Thomas worked faster over his uncle when something hard hit the floor, the noise turning everyone to it. At first it was assumed that Ransom had bullishly knocked over a lab dish or instrument, but then they saw the white bone near his feet. “Something out of the pile of clothes tossed on that shelf,” Ransom said, shrugging.

“It’s the other sabre-tooth… must’ve been in one of the pockets,” said Declan, going to it and lifting it. “I’m quite willing to bet it’s empty of pulp.”

“We’ve no time for teeth or games of chance now, Declan.” Thomas had kept working as if to stop at any point would end it for him. He’d determined to give no thought whatever that the final dissection was over his beloved uncle. He obviously had made up his mind to treat Fiore’s body as he might any shell rolled into the dissection theater here at the university complex at Mater Infirmorum.

Ransom thought how much a man Thomas had become this night. Meanwhile, Declan pocketed the tooth, saying, “Well it may come in handy later on when we have to explain ourselves, eh?”

After making the initial Y incision on his own uncle, then cracking the chest open, then watching the dank, dirty-brown liquid bubble up, Thomas had felt his entire body relax. He was thinking, ‘I love the work, despite everything’ when suddenly he stumbled back with a startled gasp. This caused Declan to drop a metal dish, creating a gunshot-like sound.

Ransom, certain he’d been fired on, had dropped to the floor as the noise reverberated about the operating theater. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“Membranous tissue… ah-ah where it doesn’t belong.” Thomas pointed his leather-gloved hand with scalpel at the open chest.

“Are those sacs?” asked Ransom, shaken. “Some sort of… eggs?”

“But miscarriages—all of them, deflated, ill-formed, and unfinished.” Thomas’s leather-gloved right hand and scalpel still pointed at his uncle’s splayed open body.

Declan cautiously made his way to the open cavity into which he now stared long and hard. “They’re not doing well these little fellows, but you’re correct, detective.”

“This is some strange sort of life form alien to us, and it’s trying to incubate here.” Thomas perspired and looked as if he might faint out. The damnable things’ve filled the chest and abdominal cavities.”

“Now we know where all the fluids in the host body have gone… into this effort at survival and growth.” The consummate scientist, Declan appeared positively glowing with the excitement of discovering a new life form.

“Each attempt within each human host appears to be coming closer to completing itself.” Declan looked at Ransom, adding, “Tuttle’s body is likely riddled with these… these things. We’ve got to find him, like I said, dead or alive, and maybe even quarantine that so-called unsinkable ship.”

“Sun’s up,” said Thomas who’d looked out the door leading to the small supply room they had entered through. “We’re running out of time. We need to get our story organized and records in order if we’re to convince the Dean and Dr. B.”

“We need more time,” complained Declan.

Ransom put his hat on, lifted his cane, and checked his pocket watch to see that it was indeed nearing 7AM. “Well lads, it has been an adventure. Best be gone before your professor shows up. What time does the professor normally arrive?”

“Eight sharp, ready to cut!” said Declan with an abrupt laugh, and the two young men shook their heads, Thomas slapping Declan on the arm. Ransom realized it was an inside joke they shared about their teacher, and this suspicion was solidified when Declan, fatigue-laden to begin with, began walking in an exaggerated manner, leather-gloved hands snapping at suspenders in mimicking Dr. Bellingham.

While Thomas bent over with laughter—a much needed balm now, Ransom smiled wide, envying the boys their bond of friendship when a sudden, loud pounding all around them silenced the trio, and with guns pointed, police slammed through doors on either side of the operating theater. Constable Ian Reahall entered shouting, “Take them all in—all three, Sergeant! Use your irons!”

Dr. Enoch Bellingham rushed in just behind Reahall, and he stared hard at his two students and asked, “What have you done here? How could you go against my wishes? The wishes of the Dean? To break your vows to me, to ignore our Queensland University code of conduct?”

“But sir!” began Declan.

“You may be interns but you are here at the hospital representing the kind of young men we bring up through Queensland!”

“But Dr. B-Bellingham,” pleaded Declan, “you must examine our findings!”

“We’ve made startling discoveries, sir,” added Thomas.

Dean Goodfriar rushed in now, looking as disheveled as Bellingham, as if both men had thrown on their clothes only moments before. “This is an outrage!” he shouted, looking from one dissected body to the next. “You are looking at expulsion, you… you scamps! You young idiots! I will see to it!”

“The entire place will have to be disinfected,” said Bellingham.

“You’re all under arrest for breaking and entering.” Reahall turned to the dean and the professor, adding, “Your students are now my prisoners. Put the irons on ’em, Sergeant.”

Dr. Bellingham and Dean Goodfriar tried to intervene on behalf of the boys, trying to reason with Reahall. Bellingham insisted, “This is a matter for the hospital and the university to deal with. This so-called detective is one thing,” he shoved a wagging index finger in Alastair’s direction. “But these are my students, and I will see to their punishment, you can be assured.”