Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven Clues

Margaret arched her back and took a deep breath, trying to relax her tense nerves.The fat protective clothing greatly hindered her movement.Her hands trembled a little, though very slightly, enough to interfere with her control of the laparoscope. Laparoscope is a medical instrument used to perform surgery in the abdominal cavity. It consists of a sensitive fiber optic camera and different types of probes, scalpels, drills and other auxiliary instruments.The camera uses a cold light source, which is almost as big as a piece of thread.Surgeons can use this instrument to perform precise surgical treatment without the traditional method of cutting open the patient's stomach.

Nobody had used the device for an autopsy, but she wanted to examine the area around the growth without damaging it as much as possible.Her approach appears to be paying off. When she examined Charlotte Wilson's body, the growth had rotted into a black goo, leaving her with nothing to examine, and the skin tissue around the growth had already begun to vibrate horribly. The speed is greatly broken down.But this time, she came prepared.Using a laparoscope, she was able to probe deeply into the growth and surrounding area.She continued to probe, the probe penetrating into the rotting black flesh almost to the bone, and then she found some substance that clearly did not belong to the victim's body.

She began to tap her fingers one by one again, the crackling sound of knuckle friction was masked by the thick protective clothing and the beeping of the instrument.She took another deep breath, picked up the camera control device, and stared at the small monitor.The monitor clearly showed the black and rotting internal structure of the growth.She knew the rot would spread to other parts of the body in an instant, reducing it to a worthless pile of rotting flesh in a matter of hours.She counts every second. Her hands are no longer shaking. To perform precise surgery, her hands must be steady.The thing, barely a quarter of an inch across, looked like part of a growth.Black, the same color as the rotting gore around it, yet refracting light like plastic.This feature is the only reason she discovered it.

She moved the camera with her left hand, getting a little closer to the black spot.A pair of small pliers is included in the instrument's add-on, and she controls the pair of pliers with another joystick in her right hand.Like a child playing a million-dollar video game, she continued to move her pincers towards the little piece of black plastic.At this time, her finger stopped at the trigger, and as long as the trigger was pressed, the pliers would clamp tightly. "Amos, help me zoom in on the picture." Amos turned the control knob.The image is a little distorted due to high magnification, and the mysterious black flake is framed into the line of sight impartially.The pincers looked like a pair of monster metal claws trying to free a lone swimmer in a black ocean.

She squeezed the trigger carefully.The pliers firmly bit the black substance, the jaws of the pliers continued to tighten, and sticky air bubbles rolled out of the black rot. "Beautifully done," said Amos, "it worked on the first try!" She smiled and pulled the lever back, and the strange substance remained motionless.She watched the monitor screen carefully, and gently swung the joystick from side to side, shaking the clamped object.She slowly discovered the reason why she couldn't pull it—the thing was firmly embedded in a rib.She pulled the lever back again, slowly increasing the hydraulic pressure.The thing began to bend gradually, and suddenly popped off the ribs.The instrument made a small buzzing sound, and accompanied by a muffled sound, the small pliers covered in black mucus also bounced off the wound.

Amos put a cell culture dish under the tongs.Margaret let go of the trigger, but the black substance stuck tightly to the mucus next to the jaws of the pliers.He picked up a scalpel and carefully scraped it into the cell culture dish with the tip. She picked up the petri dish and approached her mask. The black substance had a shape.She finally understood why it was buried so deep in the bone, because it looked like the black thorn of a rose. She couldn't help feeling a little satisfied.While they're miles away from cracking this dreadful puzzle, thanks to Charlotte Wilson for letting her know where to start and how long it might take.The black thorn was a new creature, which brought them one small step closer to the answer.

"Hey," Amos said, "how do you explain this?" He stood next to Brubaker's hip, which may have had one of the lightest burns on his body.His hand felt a skin lesion, sort of like a pimple. A pimple with a tiny blue fibrous root growing from it. "He's got some acne," Margaret said. "Does that matter to you?" "I think everything is important. Shall we excise it and send it in for examination?" She thought for a while, "Not for now. That piece of skin doesn't seem to have started to rot now, so I'll check it myself. Let's check the areas that are rotting first, because we don't have much time to study them, and we Let's work on the rash again, shall we?"

"Okay," Amos said.He gently picked up the camera on the operating table, put the lens close to the rash, pressed the shutter, and put the camera back. "We'll fix it later." "How long will it take for us to get the results of the tissue analysis of the neoplasm?" "There will be news tomorrow. I'm sure they'll have to stay up all night, and they'll have to analyze DNA, protein sequences and whatever else might come up." She looked at her watch—10:07 p.m.She and Amos would have to stay up all night, and maybe the next day too.They had no choice, and hard-earned experience told them that Brubaker's body was only days away from decomposing.