"Wow," Percy grabbed the book. It was huge, easily going up to 2 thousand pages, and the print was small, like font 4 size small. "I somehow get the feeling you don't want me here."
"It's not you sweety, it's the job," Lanie pointed at a desk, presumably hers, and it was filled with folders, "I've just been backlogged for a long time. I can't afford to waste time on a trainee, no matter how cute he is."
Percy smiled at the last comment, "well maybe if I learn this fast enough I could help you."
Lanie smiled, "that would be nice. Now go and study, we can talk about it over lunch."
And with that Percy went and sat in Lanie's desk, she wasn't using it, so might as well right? Percy opened the book and quickly began to look through it.
Whenever Lanie got a moment to spar she would look over to her desk and spot Percy sitting there reading the book. She was surprised at the speed at which he read, his eyes didn't last for more than a few seconds on each page. She doubted he could actually memorize all of that, but even if he only had a vague understanding of the human body then it would be good enough for her.
Some time later:
Lanie had just come back from finishing her lunch, she had offered to take Percy out but the boy was far too distracted. He insisted that he wasn't hungry, which made sense considering he spent the first hours of the day looking at dead bodies and reading about the 'miracles' of the human body.
But when Lanie entered her office once more Percy wasn't at her desk pouring over a book, no, he was currently over the corpse she was performing a medical examination on with the corpse file open in his hands.
"What do you think you're doing?" Lanie asked.
"He died because of mercury poisoning," Percy stated as he turned to the medical examiner, "the way the nerves are rected and the blue lines running across the victim's body indicates as such."
Lanie blinked, "wow, that's pretty good. But that isn't the cause of death."
Percy blinked, "what?"
"The mercury poisoning was there, but it didn't kill him, something else got to him first. If you notice the mercury hasn't spread too far, so something else happened that killed him."
Percy formed as he glared at the body like it had offended him in some way. He stayed silent for a few minutes, his eyes constantly shifting from one organ to another, before finally he smiled.
"Kidney failure," Percy claimed, "he died because of a kidney failure."
This time Lanie was genuinely surprised, "what?" she put on a pair of gloves and looked over the corpse. She hadn't noticed the discoloration of the kidney's underside, it wasn't normally the first thing anyone looks for.
The female forensic analyst turned to Percy, "how did you know that?"
Percy grinned, "I have a good eye."
Human Body, Percentage known— 65%
You knowlegde about the human body and how it is affected by various substances. It is currently above average than the normal person, on par with physicians.
This new skill helped Percy individually analyse the victim's corpse and find out what was wrong. Now that he actually knew what all those complicated terms meant he had a much easier time knowing what to do.
Organ: Liver,
A large lobed glandular organ in the abdomen of vertebrates, involved in many metabolic processes.
Status: Liver failure (Death)
The medical examiner whistled, "damn....okay I'll take it back. Espo just might have given me the best birthday gift ever."
"Oh, it's your birthday?"
"Figure of speech honey," Lanie smiled as she grabbed an extra set of gloves, "now put these on. Let's see if we can use that genius head of yours and that sharp eye to find out just what the hell happened with these people."
"Yes ma'am," Percy grinned as he took the gloves and stood behind Lanie. She slowly began to pour over the body, dictating aloud everything she was doing. Percy stood there taking mental note of all that she said. It payed to have an intelligence level of over 100 points.
By the end of the day Lanie had finished over half the of the ongoing cases she had piled up. Percy had been a machine, moving from one file to the next. And often times his predictions were spot on, of course he often times needed help, he was doing this for the first time ever, but it was almost supernatural the way he knew exactly what was wrong with the dead bodies.
"I have to say Percy, I'm very impressed, were you lying when you said you had no prior experience with this kind of stuff?" Lanie asked as she sat back on her desk enjoying a hot cup of coffee.
Percy smiled,"no Lanie, I wasn't. I told you, I'm a quick study."
"Well you better be, or else I just might think you were an angel sent by God or something," Lanie smiled as she drank the brown bitter drink.
"Wrong religion," Percy muttered.
"I'm sorry what?"
"Nothing!" Percy smiled.
Just then the doors to the medical lab were thrown open as Castle and Kate walked in. Percy smiled, "hey guys!"
"Hello Percy, Lanie," Kate smiled at her friend, "you seem pretty relaxed."
"I am," the dark skinned woman smiled.
"Weren't you just complaining this morning about how much work you had to go through?" Castle asked as he and Percy shared a hug.
"I was, and now I'm not. And it's all thanks to this miracle boy over there," Lanie pointed at Percy who blushed.
"It was nothing."
"Yeah, sure," Lanie rolled her eyes, "I honestly don't know what's going on here Becket. I gave him a medical journal to read, and in a few hours he was done. I then asked him to help out, and the next thing I know half off my work pile is finished and I'm sitting here drinking coffee, thanks for that Castle."
"Don't mention it," Castle turned to see Percy's confused look, "I bought them a new coffee machine a few years ago," he explained causing Percy to nodd.
"So when were you guys going to tell me you two adopted a genius?" Lanie asked looking at Castle and Kate.
"Really? A genius?" Kate asked.
"Well he did learn in one afternoon what I learnt in over three months. Sure it's not perfect, he needs a lot of experience, but damn if that still isn't impressive!"
Kate turned to Percy, "you know Espo told me a similar story, one about you filing and arranging the entire records room in a single day."
Percy chuckled, "I told you I was awesome."
"The king of video Game and menial tasks," Castle patted Percy on the shoulder, "you my young friend are very impressive."
"Thanks Castle," Percy smiled.
"Now why are you two here?" Lanie asked, "I assume it's not just to check up on the boy genius over here."
"Did you get the body we found in Central park?" Kate asked.
"Yeah, I was just about to go over it after my break," Lanie went to the morgue, "Percy pick up the 'John Doe' case file please."
"Got it," Percy grabbed the file as the small group of people moved to the wall containing all the bodies. Lanie opened up one of the refrigerated compartments and pulled the table out. The body on the slab was off a 25 year old male, no tattoos, no marking of any kind. The police and Lanie had no idea who he was. But Percy....well Percy had a different problem.
Adam Lohus, Lawyer
Lv— 14
HP: 0/0 (Dead)
MP: 0/0 (Dead)
Race— Human
Str— 0
Vit— 0
Dex— 0
Int— 0
Wis— 0
Luc— 0
The corpse of one Adam Lohus. In life he was a successful defense lawyer for the criminal underworld. He was unmarried and has no one close to him.
Likes: Golf, Money, Sex
Dislikes: African Americans, Dodgers.
He doesn't know Percy
In life he was a great lawyer and excelled in thinking up airtight defence arguments.
He doesn't have any feelings, he's dead
Percy knew exactly who this man was, and he couldn't figure out how he could tell Castle and Kate how he knew this.
As Lanie was explaining to Castle and Kate what all she found while operating on the body Percy looked over the body. The man died from strangulation, there were rope marks around his neck. But it wasn't a suicide, the dozen stab wounds on his sternum suggests otherwise.
Adam here was a lawyer, and that meant his prints must be in some system somewhere, but the killer must have already thought about that and Adam's fingers had been burnt with a torch. Lanie hoped that she could find something out using his dental records, but that wasn't really a promising lead.
Just then Percy noticed something, something he hadn't seen before. He didn't realise how he could have ever missed it, Adam's body as missing something, it's left pinky toe.
"No fucking way," Percy gasped, this was exactly like the bodies he was reading about last night.
"Got something for us Percy?" Kate asked looking at Percy's surprised face.
"Yeah....but even I don't' believe it," Percy didn't understand, just last night he was reading about this case, and today boom, a body with the exact marking of the killer he had wanted to find. Could he be that lucky? Wait...
Percy pulled up his stats and looked at his luck;
LUC-100
Unfortunately today wasn't Friday, so that meant he didn't get his luck day +25 bonus. But that still made it too farfetched, it was almost like Percy was....granted a wish... 'No, no, no!'
Percy quickly pulled up his perks and looked through them;
Wish— Make one wish a week. 40% chance of success, less the more ridiculous the wish is. (Used. Waiting time— 6 days and counting.)
'Great, just great. The first time this thing actually worked and it did so to provide me with a dead body.' Percy was worried, did he cause this man to die? Did he doom this man because of his wish? Or was the wish simply easy to grant and that's why it was the only one that worked?
"Percy," Castle questioned in a concerned tone, "are you okay?"
Percy snapped his head up, "y-yeah. Lanie, when did this body die?"
"Ah, from what I can tell the 'John Doe' died sometime around 5 in the evening last night. At least that's what the decomposition tells me."
Percy sighed, 'good, that means he died before I made the wish. Meaning the only reason my wish was granted was because it was easy to grant. But that begs the question if I never asked for it, would I be standing here right now with the opportunity to solve this case?'
The implications were mind boggling for Percy, just as he was about to think about the ability for him to affect the actions of the world around him Kate spoke up, "Percy are you okay? You seem very distracted."
"I'm fine," Percy pushed the thoughts away to the back of his mind, "I need a few minutes."
Kate and Castle nodded and Percy quickly ran out. As he left he could here Lanie speaking, "I don't' understand why he reacted like that. He's been here all day, he's seen way worse things."
Percy however didn't care, he quickly ran to the bathroom and checked it. Once he was sure he was alone he opened his inventory and pulled out the file he nicked the day before. This was the case file they needed, with this Castle and Kate could track down the killer.
Percy was tempted, very very tempted to just run off on his own right now and get this man. All he would have to do is wait, if this killer followed the same pattern then another body would show up somewhere in central park tonight.
But at the same time Percy knew the difference between justice and vengeance. If it was Percy's mom who was killed, and he couldn't find the killer, then he would want justice for the crime. He wouldn't want some random third party to take care of the killer, Percy would want to do it himself. And the family of the victims...they deserved that.
So Percy sighed and walked out of the toilet. He walked back to the morgue, "here, you guys will need this."
Castle took the file and quickly poured over it with Kate reading over his shoulder Castle finished first as he looked at Percy, "where did you get this Percy?"
"Yesterday while in the Record's room I looked over a couple of cold cases," Percy explained, "a few stuck out to me, this was one of them."
"So you think the same person who killed these four people is back?" Kate asked as she passed the file to Lanie who went over the corner reports of the bodies.
"Yeah, well either that or a copy cat," Percy pointed at the missing pinkie toe, "that is a very specific trophy. It has to be one of those two."
"Well then maybe we are looking at a copycat," Castle offered, "after all it can't be the original killer, he must be what? 80 something by now?"
"No, it's not a copycat," Lanie spoke up, "this reports match exactly up with what I'm seeing over here. The angle of the cut, the missing bones in the pinkie that were removed after the cut. It's way too close to be a coincidence."
"So maybe the new guy knows the old killer," Percy supplied, "maybe the older killer wanted to leave behind a legacy."
"We need to track down the officers that were in charge of this case," Kate said, "from what I can see we only have one lead, Parkins."
"What about that travis guy?" Castle asked.
"Dead," Percy supplied, "I know, I checked last night. Do you guys have Parkinson's address in the database?"
"If he's getting his pension from the department then yes," Kate took out her phone and dialed in a number, "this is detective Beckett, I need the address of one retired police officer..."
While Kate arranged for that Percy turned to Castle, "I'm coming with."
"Yeah, no can do," Castle shook his head, "it's way too dangerous for you."
"You came in here with nothing Castle, I'm the one who gave you not just a clue, but a lead. Without me you would have had to pile through the entire records room, which I remind you I arranged and catalogue just the other day. You would have had to look through all of them, by the time you did that the killer would have struck again."
"...If I didn't know you were Sally's son before I sure do now," Castle sighed, "look it's not up to me."
"It's up to me," Kate walked to them as she put away her phone, "I got the address, come on Castle."
"I'm coming with," Percy grabbed his coat.
"No you're not," Kate argued back.
"Kate if you don't let me come with you I will go behind your back and I will find this man on my own. If you don't think I will, then you don't know me at all."
"Percy I'm grateful for your help, I am. But any interference from a non department individual and any case we make against this guy won't stick."
"And why is Castle allowed to go?"
"Because' he's a consultant," Kate glared, "you are not coming, that's final."
"Fine....but if one more body appears tomorrow and you two aren't any closer to finding the killer I'm stepping in."
