Nurse Redheart led us down to a lower level within the hospital. It was dark, creepy, and enough to send chills down the spine of any hardened investigator. This area clearly wasn’t visited very often. Once we got down the steps, we were met with a few cobwebs and a few scattered bits of dust. I suppose this is why she gave us these masks.
“Yikes,” Cork mumbled through the suppressed shield of his gas mask, “How long has it been since anypony was down here?”
“A while,” Redheart responded as she flipped the light switch on, “Most deaths in the past twenty years have occurred by natural causes to those with family. As a result, most of the dead bodies have been buried within graves at the Cemetery.”
Once she turned the lights on, we had a clear visual of the morgue’s interior. Wide, elongated cabinets in rows along the walls that likely held bodies of ponies. So very eerie to witness, but it excited me, honestly. The wonders of experiencing what the dead could offer us in terms of understanding biology and possible neurological makeup. I wasn’t a scientist or anything, but it was still fun to speculate about.
“I see...quite the interesting situation,” I mumbled behind the mask, “And just why are most of the bodies buried in the cemetery, Red?” I already knew the answer. But I wanted her to explain for the sake of Corkscrew who admittedly looked somewhat lost.
“The purpose of the morgue is for unmarked and unclaimed bodies with no family or friends that can properly send them off,” she explained as she pointed a hoof around the room, “These cabinets are extra long on the inside where the bodies are stored with a special bit of magic we earth ponies cooked up. That way, they can rest comfortably without rotting in case a member of their family shows up.”
Cork would then ask a question that everyone had on their mind when in a place such as this. “Um...so what happens to the bodies that are never claimed?”
“...If the body isn’t claimed after a certain amount of time, it can be used for biology experiments and other things such as teaching medical students how to perform surgery,” she said with a sigh, “Yeah it’s not the most….comforting thing in the world. But we don’t want to make waste of the lives of those who had no one to care for them.”
“Huh…” It took him a minute to form a response. “I...guess that’s cool.”
I couldn’t blame him for being skeptical. From an outsider’s perspective, it did seem somewhat strange to make use of the dead in such a way. Though I couldn’t exactly condemn them for it. The loss of one life could be used to help prevent dozens of others. Whether it be through research or teaching them to not repeat the same mistakes.
Still, it was a completely different experience to even be down here.
“So,” I spoke up as I took a look around the room, “Where is Screwy’s body located?”
“In the ‘S’ section,” Redheart led us down the hall, towards another room that was connected to this one. “I hope you’re both prepared…”
We followed her closely until we arrived at the cabinet in question. Redheart put some gloves on her hooves, and pulled it open. Sure enough, we saw the body of the light blue mare with white hair lying lifeless with no shred of existence left within her.
“...Oogh…” I shivered a bit. No matter how many times I came across a dead body, it never became easier for me. “So here she is, then…”
From the corner of my eye, I could see Cork almost recoil as he took a step behind me. “...Woah. Give us some warning next time, eh?”
“...Uh-huh,” Redheart replied, “So what is it that you two are looking for exactly?”
I put on a pair of gloves for myself, and took a closer look at the body. “We’re looking for a sign of evidence that her body had been tampered with in some way by Neighsay’s experimentation.”
Redheart leaned forward. From behind her gas mask, I could see her eyes light up, and pupils shrink due to excitement. “Wait, wait, wait...so you mean to say…?”
I nodded as I took a peek at Screwy’s neck. “It’s entirely possible that it’s not you or any of the medical team’s fault. If she had her mental stability tinkered with in an unlawful way, then we’ll have more than enough evidence to further incriminate him.”
“Oh...oh wow,” she replied with a shortness of breath, “I...I genuinely thought that we failed her. But if that’s truly the case, then I wanna go give Neighsay a piece of my mind myself.”
Admirable, but not what we needed right now. “Patience,” I said, “He’s already behind bars, and has been de-powered. There’s nothing else we can do except follow our orders.” I opened the dead mare’s mouth, and took a glance down her throat. Nothing. Gah. It had to be here somewhere.
From behind me, I heard Cork ask another question. “So Nurse Red. Um...what’s the most common reason for ponies having to come here.”
“Well like I said before, we don’t usually get many ponies that have to be taken to the morgue. But of the ones that did in the past…err...” She trailed off for a moment. Something about the way she had to give time to her answer didn’t sit right with me. And as I expected, her response was rather profound. “...Changeling love drainage.”
I stopped on a bit. Absolutely nopony had told me this until now. Which was damning when considered just how much of a threat the Changelings were. “Wait...it’s possible to die from having your loved sucked out of you? How come no one has ever explained that?!”
“...We never thought it was necessary since there were so few casualties,” the nurse mare replied with a shaky tone, “And we also didn’t want anypony to strike up any prejudices against the changelings once they had reformed. We had no choice but to keep silent on the matter.”
Okay, maybe that made sense. But it threw me into a mental panic since I knew there was a crazed, new breed of Changeling on the loose. Just what was I going to do against that? And more importantly...Redheart needed to know. However, I wasn’t going to give her all of the details for two reasons: One. I didn’t want to throw her into a panic. And two: I didn’t want my words used against me if the walls had ears.
“As of right now, there is possibly a pony out there with similar abilities,” I replied in a low tone, “I don’t know if it’s certain--but start preparing treatments for love-drain related injuries if need be.”
The nurse’s eyes grew worrisome. “Wh-what? How are you so sure??”
“Just do what you can,” I responded coldly, “There’s absolutely zero time to stand idle and debate with me over small details. You need to be prepared for anything. It’s your job, isn’t it?”
She got the hint, and let it go for now. With a sigh, she nodded once. “Understood, officer. I’ll start doing what I can. Have you found anything on Screwy’s body yet? And are you…?”
I could tell by the concerned tone at the end of her sentence that she wanted to know if I was capable of handling such a thing with a cadaver. “Don’t worry--I minored in forensics for a little while, so I can safely say that I know what I’m doing. And it looks…” At last, I found it. The same symbol I had found on the other subjects, but it was hidden deeply within her mane. “I see…”
Cork leaned over my shoulder. “What do you think, boss? Not like we can ask her why she was a part of it or anything.”
He was right. There was no way to know for sure why she got this rune from Neighsay given that she was dead. All I could do was speculate based on the evidence at hoof. “Well...this is just a hunch--after which, we’ll need to return to Neighsay and question him ourselves. But for now, here’s my theory…” I took a deep breath, and went on. “It’s entirely plausible that she went to him for assistance with her mental...conflicts and he provided her with the rune which allowed her to remain sane for a while.”
“I see,” my pegasus partner replied, “Makes sense, boss. But that doesn’t really explain how she died.” He looked at Redheart, “You said it was due to substance misuse, yeah?”
She nodded. “That’s what we chalked it up to once we brought her in that day, yes. There wasn’t really any other likely reason for her to have suddenly passed away like that.”
Curious. But I wasn’t going to allow that to be the end of it. I refused to let something like this escape me. “That’s not good enough,” I chided as I backed away from the body, “Can you get me her autopsy report, Red?”
“Of course, sir. Give me a moment,” she replied and walked into another room nearby that contained filing cabinets--likely filled with files related to each corpse.
“You really think Neighsay’s actions could’ve killed her, boss?” Cork asked with a nervous flap of his wings, “I don’t wanna know what’ll happen if word gets out that the EEA was led by a straight up murderer.”
Yes. The diplomatic process was unkind whenever it wanted to be. Something like that was sure to cause unrest within the EEA itself. I wouldn’t be surprised if Twilight considered the disbanding of the organization entirely. For the moment, though, all we could do was make use of conjecture to align proper clues into place for the sake of finding the truth.
I pushed the mare’s body back into its place, and removed my gloves. “Hmph. Jury’s out on that one, kid. Not much we can do except focus on what we should do.”
“Yeah you’re right,” he said, a bit calmer now that I eased his pains. “And yet I feel like…”
We were interrupted when Redheart came back into the room. “Well that’s...crazy. It wasn’t like this when we drew it up,” she mumbled while she looked over the file she held in her hoof.
“What’s the matter?” I asked as I walked over, “Something wrong with the file?”
“Yes actually...look,” she flipped it around to show me.
The entirety of Screwy’s file had been blacked out. Every single line of text had been censored with what looked like jet black permanent marker.
“Wha...what is...how? Who??” I was so confused that I couldn’t even form a proper phrase. Who would have done this? Why? There was something going on here for certain.
Things got even more suspicious when Cork walked up and sniffed the documents. “...Hm. That marker...smells like it’s been applied there for at least a few weeks to a month. This was relatively recent. Somepony more than likely knew we would end up at this point, and preemptively cut us off by blacking out the document.”
Redheart looked up at us and shook her head. “I swear...I have no idea who could’ve done this. Nopony even comes down here! You saw all the dust and spider webs that had gathered up. Who could’ve done it? A ghost?”
She did raise a good point. This place was essentially abandoned with bits of soot and old webs that looked as if they had been here for more than six months. There was no logical way that anyone could have come in here to fudge the documents. Not unless they used magic from the outside to manipulate everything within. But how would that be possible…
“...We believe you, Red. But we’ll need those documents.”
She offered them to me. “Here, take them. You’ll need them far more than I ever will.”
“Thank you very much.”
Once I took the documents on Screwy, we all left the confines of the morgue, and took the steps back up to the hospital. We removed our masks and washed our hands for the sake of being clean afterwards.
“We appreciate your assistance, ma’am,” Cork said as we took our leave.
“If you two need anything else, don’t hesitate,” Redheart replied, “The last thing I want is for the ponies around me to have their jobs at risk due to the actions of some crook.”
I tipped my hat. “We’ll do our best, don’t you worry.”
Oh but I was worrying alright. With so many more elements at play now, I wasn’t even sure where to go next.
But it seemed that Cork was.
“Boss...we need to go see you-know-who.”