Zombie/Pilot

Another day, another body.

'Hello Mr Pepper! Mah name is Bernie. Bernie Lynch.' The lilting Scot smiled down at the bullet-ridden body on the stainless steel gurney. Her glasses flashed as she marked condition and took inventory of the outer wounds.

Another day, another dead body. Oh well, in a city the size of Gotham it really wasn't that surprising. She gave the master-file a quick flip and noticed "Shot by Detective Bullock - Wanted in connection to the Thomas/Martha Wayne murder" and glanced down at the corpse. She'd seen those bodies earlier in the week but the head pathologist had refused to allow anyone else to do the autopsies. They were hot potatoes. Any pathologist who screwed up those autopsies would soon know the limit of their life but no guts - no glory and pathologists saw an awful lot of guts in their line of work.

'Noo, weren't you a silly boy?' She mused. Thomas and Martha Wayne were two of the city's most beloved philanthropists. Funny, she was more comfortable speaking to the dead than she was to the living. Then again, the dead never mocked her relentlessly for her foreign accent. Ah the perks of morgue work.

She checked the boxes for homicide and open case before she laid the clipboard on his chest and eased him over to the table.

Once she'd transferred the body onto the stainless steel and checked the camera and video she returned to the clipboard and scribbled some observations of the body before procedure began. The cloying smell of garbage filled the air, it was coming from his clothes. Her nose - complete with freckles - wrinkled. What had he done, rolled around in a dumpster? She hated dumpster bodies, even more than the crispers.

'Bernice?'

She paused and glanced up over her glasses as she scribbled. Through her mass of thick black hair, she noted the head pathologist - Doctor Martin Stagg, in the doorway and felt her heart sink. 'Yes, Doctor Stagg?' He motioned her over. and she nervously approached. 'Is there something wrong?'

He said nothing to her but plucked her file from her fingers and read. 'Bernice, you've been warned about this kind of thing.'

'B-but sir-' She could feel her face heating up in embarrassment.

'You are not a pathologist.' He studied her handiwork intently as she mumbled and umm-ed her way through an explanation.

'Ah only have to pass my exams...Need the experience,' She looked to the floor bashfully, her eyes focused on the tartan pattern of her shoes.

He unclipped her detailed and filled in sheet - the one she was going to have Doctor Santangelo look over and sign, he didn't have to do much more than double-check her work - and tore it down the middle. She gasped, as though wounded. 'But you are not a pathologist yet, Bernice.'

It was exactly the kind of petty bureaucracy that came from a place like this. It took quite a lot in her not to cry.

'This is your last warning, do you understand?'

'Yes Doctor Stagg.'

'You need to learn when to follow procedure. I can't keep-' He paused and looked up at the sound of the outer doors and the bell on reception being rang feverishly.

'Oh what...? Visitors now?' Stagg threw his arms, complete with her clipboard in the air. 'Where the hell is Christine?'

'Ah dunno Doctor Stagg,'

'We are not done discussing this , Bernice.' He warned before he handed her two evidence bags, each containing a bullet. 'But forensics want these. I assume I can trust you with this? You won't try and do their job for them too, will you?'

She turned crimson. 'No, Doctor Stagg.'

Most people knew her as Bernie, the morgue tech. The morgue errand girl would be a better description. Still, there were some perks to the job. She generally knew all the gossip first, she was a dab hand with tweezers and she saw the most interesting people - both on and off the slab. As she danced through the crowded hall full of police and criminals, several turned to jeer her way - most were cops and most centered around one particular thing.

'Hey Bernie, where's your boyfriend?' She stalled and turned to look at the catcall. Montoya and her partner, Allen were descending on her. Cops around them were patently ignoring their presence, but it didn't take a genius to know they were listening to every word that was being said.

'Ah don't know who yer referring to.' She replied and went pink again.

'Sure you do. About this big? Dark hair? Skinny as a rake? Wears those stupid glasses and asks the most annoying-'

'He means Nygma.' Montoya cut across. 'Those the bullets from the Pepper stiff?'

She bristled slightly. Disrespect for the dead was half of Gotham's problems. The other half was usually stirred up by these two on Major Crimes when they went looking for a mobster and then someone ended up on the table. 'Yeah?' She wavered.

'We can take them to Nygma for you. Save you the trip.' Allen used his full height to his advantage. Being almost six foot and bearing down on a woman barely topping five foot four, it was intimidating.

'Ah wish ah could help,' She stammered and tried to back away. 'Bu' ah promised ah'd personally deliver them, Ye ken?' Her accent always became slightly thicker when she was nervous or afraid.

'Come on, Bernie. Help us out here.'

'Ah'm afraid ah cannit. Wish ah could.' She sidled up the stairs towards forensics.

'Bernie-' Allen replied, a note of threat in his voice until Montoya laid a hand on his shoulder.

'Let it go, Crispin.' Montoya sighed. 'She's just doing her job.' Allen looked at her incredulously and sagged.

She took the opportunity to bolt and hand over the evidence before someone else accosted her for it, like Bullock.

'What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?' Of course, he greets her with a riddle.

'Ah dunno, Edward.' She replied softly as she lay down the packets. The forensics office is perhaps the smallest and most put upon of the entire area. It's littered with papers, microscopes and helplessly overburdened technicians. Edward Nygma was perhaps her favourite of all of them. He was awkward and enthusiastic and very, very smart.

'The answer is a stamp, of course!' He smiled up at her and she fought the urge to blush.

Of course, he was completely oblivious to the teasing going on downstairs and she hadn't found the incentive to screw up her courage and tell him. Especially when she couldn't answer a single riddle.

'Ah shoulda guessed.' She replied and tapped the soft plastic. 'Tell me again why yer too scared to come and pick these up yerself?'

'Scared?' He looked up at her. 'I'm not scared.'

'Sure yer not Edward.' Denial. Pure and simple. There were stories - humiliating, mostly - of Edward's attempts to dodge the Gotham Municipal Morgue.

He went slightly red, almost the same shade as her in fact and tried to pretend to squint at something in a microscope. 'Thank you for bringing them to me.'

'Nae problem. It gets me out of the morgue.' She hesitated. 'Yer may want to watch yer back tho.'

He frowned into his eyepiece and then up at her. 'Why?'

'Montoya and Allen're sniffin' about fer a case. Offered to bring the bullets ter you for me.' Best to warn him now, really. She had no doubt they'd try to wheedle what they could from him.

'Crosspoint Piggy Gold Hug,' * He growled.

'Tha's what ah said.' She nodded. It got a smirk out of him and sent her stomach writhing. 'Anyway, ah'd best get back.'

'Thank you for the warning. Authenticate Holiday Slug.' **

'Are yer doin' anagram under yer breath again?'

'Yes.'

Intelligent, but very wierd.

She really didn't like Montoya and Allen. They were the precinct's golden duo and god help you if you had a case - or evidence - they wanted. God help Edward, they seemed interested in this evidence. But it was no longer her problem. She could go back to her morgue and wait for the next body. Speaking of bodies - she pushed into the building and easily heard Detective Bullock's voice hunting for just that.

'You're telling me you've had no cases of unknown floater this week?'

'Not yet, detective Bullock.' Christine the over-primped and patently bored receptionist sighed.

'You sure?!'

'Detective,' Christine's tone became glacial. 'If there was a floater pulled from the river, trust me - you'd smell him.'

There was the sound of shoes squeaking against the over-waxed floor and a tension-filled grunt of annoyance.

'What's with the interest in floaters?' Christine muttered petulantly at his anger.

'Missing person, last seen by the docks. C'mon Christine you know how it works.'

Know how it...? He must be talking about the lines of inquiry. It didn't much deductive reasoning if his missing person was last seen near the docks.

'What's his name?' Christine sighed.

'Cobblepot. Oswald.'

'Is that Cobblepot with a double P?'

'The fuck'm I meant to know, Christine? God.' There was the dull slap of hand on wood and a very angry growl of 'When you find one, call me.'

He moved past her as he left, looking harassed.

Cobblepot?

* Stupid glory-hugging cops

** As though I needed it.