Title: Code Black
Fandom: CSI: New York
Characters: Danny Messer, Lindsay Monroe, Sid Hammerback, OMCs, OFCs.
Spoilers: None.
Rating: T
Warning: Mature language, mild gore.
Disclaimer: "Code Black" is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Author's Notes: I know I'm supposed to be working on another fic, but I couldn't shake this idea. (Keep in mind that the disease Sid references is not real.) Please try to be patient with me - this is gasp my first WiP! Reviews are always welcome.

Acknowledgements: Thank-you to the incredible Sugah, for the beta, and to Spunky for being a great advisor. I wub you both.

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09:06 P.M.

Sid Hammerback was a man of patience. It was, after all, a prerequisite for his job as a Medical Examiner: dealing with those who couldn't simply open their mouths and tell of their journey to his table. And for that, he was grateful. The living are always the ones who hurt us, he thought. The dead can inflict neither pain nor cause such worldly travesties.

Detectives Lindsay Monroe and Danny Messer were late for the meeting they had scheduled with Hammerback – one hour and thirty-six minutes, to be exact. He sat in his office, reading over the report Dr. Marty Pino had left for him to review, with tired eyes and the physical tormenting of a sore back. A cup of lukewarm coffee sat beside the unopened mail he had yet to acknowledge, and the phone beside the computer monitor sat still for what seemed like the first time all day.

He had completed four postmortems, an astonishing record, pushing his meeting with Lindsay and Danny for the end of his shift so that he could work in the morgue without a break in his schedule. Now that it was past quitting time, and they had yet to arrive for debriefing, he put his nose in a file and began his review of the work cluttering the top of his desk.

The intercom on his desk buzzed and the soft, feminine voice of his secretary broke the silence: "Dr. Hammerback, Detective Messer and Detective Monroe are here to see you."

"Thank you, Carol. Tell them to meet me in Autopsy Two, please."

He sank back into the curve of his swivel chair and sighed. Time to provide answers.

It was a quick trip out of his office and down the eerily quiet hallways to the autopsy suite, where he found Danny and Lindsay standing inside, pulling on fresh pairs of latex gloves.

Danny looked up and watched Hammerback move for the drawer. "Sorry we're late, Hammerback. It's insane how crazy a little bit of snow makes the city."

The aged Medical Examiner waved it off. "Don't worry about it. I was just catching up on paperwork. If anything, I should thank you, for leaving me with no other option than to tend to the tedious work while I waited."

He tugged open the drawer. A standard white blanket covered the corpse of 23-year-old Stephan Shrute, a convicted impaired driver who had been ordered to serve the rest of his eighteen-month probation by completing several hours of community service. Danny and Lindsay were in the midst of determining whether or not his rift with the Brooklyn Boys – a new street gang that was rumoured to have taken over the Tanglewood Boys' business ventures - had anything do with his death.

Pulling back the sheet, Hammerback exposed Shrute's bruised features to the observing investigators. Excessive force in the form of physical blows had broken small blood vessels beneath his skin and caused contusions to rise and become visible.

"My preliminary examination didn't uncover much," Hammerback said. "Other than the bruising, everything appears fine on the outside; there aren't any lacerations or wounds to suggest foul play."

The doors to the suite opened and Luke McCabe, a morgue attendant, appeared in the doorway. Tall and boyish, McCabe was new to the Medical Examiner's office, having only completed his training for work as an assistant to the doctors of death a few months earlier.

"I'm gonna head out, Sid."

"Have a nice night, Luke."

McCabe nodded and ducked out, his release of the door sending it swinging open and closed until it slowly lost momentum and came to a halt.

"Toxicology came back clean." Hammerback handed the report over the body to Lindsay. "He had small traces of acetaminophen in his system, but all that indicates is that he took Aspirin."

"And the plot thickens..."

"I was backed up today, so I have his autopsy scheduled for tomorrow." He placed the clipboard back and regarded Danny and Lindsay, both of whom were staring at the corpse.

Danny dipped his head, leaning closer to the decedent. "Sid, what's the red discolouration around his eyes?"

Hammerback pried open one of the victim's eyelids gently to expose a glassy, bloodshot iris. Pressure on the sinuses around Shrute's eye caused thick, crimson blood to expurgate. He heard a sharp intake of breath - a sudden gasp from Lindsay - and quickly grabbed a small flashlight from the tray by the slab.

Once in his hand, he clicked the light on and connected his glasses. Blood spilled over the lower rim of the victim's eye and oozed down his face as Hammerback probed the socket. He felt the warm substance through the glove protecting his hand, his fingers slipping in it.

Lindsay inadvertently took a step back. "My God..."

He reverted his attention to the victim's bruised chest and examined it, feeling a stiff, hard mass in his abdomen, and reached for a scalpel. As soon as the sharp blade cut the flesh, a balloon of biological fluids sprayed, sending him and the detectives stumbling away with their hands over their faces.

"What the...?"

Hammerback dropped the bloodied scalpel and flashlight, and rushed for the phone like a guided missile. He picked up the receiver and stabbed buttons with a rigid finger, dialling the number for Carol's phone at the front desk.

"Carol. It's Sid. Notify Hazmat and the CDC - I have a code black: a body with an infectious viral disease. Looks like Polaris Fever." He listened to her frantic voice. "Calm down, Carol. Evacuate and shut down the floor, and have all casualties sent to the morgue at Mercy West Hospital. Detectives Monroe and Messer, and I are under quarantine - please alert their supervisor, Detective Mac Taylor."

"What's going on?" Danny's voice echoed.

With an emphatic tone, Hammerback turned and ordered, "Get away from him, now."

Pulling Lindsay with him, Danny moved further away from the drawer, the truculent note in Hammerback's words startling him. "Are you going to tell us what's going on?"

"He's bleeding from his eyes," said Hammerback as he hung up the phone.

"I could've told you that."

Hammerback stared at him. "This isn't The Mothman Prophecies, Danny. Our victim has what appears to be Polaris Fever."

"Polaris Fever? What's that?" Lindsay asked.

"It's a viral disease that's typically transmitted from rodents to humans," Hammerback explained.

"The victim worked in sanitation for his community service hours; he probably dealt with dead rats or their excrement."

"Rodents work as carriers for the illness, passing it on to humans or other animals with weak immune systems," Hammerback added. "It starts off with symptoms – a few of them being similar to the flu – and evolves into a degenerative sickness. Without proper treatment, it can be fatal within six hours, depending on the person's immune system."

"And we've all been exposed," Danny said gravely.

Hammerback nodded and stared across the room to the open drawer. Maybe I was wrong - maybe the dead can inflict pain.