Chapter Seven: Bodies of Evidence and Quaking Changes

Drip. Drip-drip. Drip. Drip-drip-drip.

Nina woke up to a Komodo slobbering over her and shrieked loudly enough to wake the dead. (Indeed, quite a few corpses at the Body Farm got annoyed enough to demand a raise, claiming Resting In Peace' was a Union requirement.)

"Don't do that," an annoyed voice said and for a moment, she thought it was the Komodo, until she looked further up and saw Miss Cam's face. Ah.

"Mya has sensitive ears," Miss Cam went on, "haven't you, my widdle lizard?"

"Some days I think you care more about those lizards than the students," Nina muttered, trying to edge herself up.

"Nonsense," Miss Cam said sharply. "I care more about them all days. They actually do as told and look adorable doing it."

Nina just groaned. Why was she here, being dribbled on by a Komodo? Where was here, anyway?

She looked up, just as memory hit her. Oh, bugger.

Here turned out to be in the basement, where she had been innocently exploring and looking for the service elevator (she just knew there had to be one up to the staff section) and had instead found what made "horrible" seem a poor and inadequate word.

And then the Komodos had found her, and so had the wall just as she was trying to run away.

"You really shouldn't open doors that are marked For staff only. Students, you will regret it!', you know," Miss Cam went on.

"I thought that was a clever way of hiding secret stuff," Nina replied, wiping some Komodo drool off her jumper. She would probably smell all day. Maybe she could convince people Drool by Komodo really was a hot new perfume.

"Clever, when any student seem to do exactly what she (or he) is told not to? Surely not."

"Fine, not. But why do you store... Those things in the basement?"

Miss Cam clicked her tongue. "Where else would we store our glorious teaching tools? I think Grissom will bring a few to his first class, which incidentally, you should shower for. Don't be late. Grissom is just itching to give Body Farm detention to someone."

And that, Nina considered as she got the hell away, was probably the closest to friendly advice that Miss Cam would get.

II

Three showers later and two changes (after all, now that Miss Cam had revealed who was teaching Forensics 101, Nina had a very good reason to look good and thus tried it), Nina found herself for once early to a class and took a front seat, where she could better send mental vibes at Grissom to do Sara on the teacher's desk.

She wasn't the only one there, though. A shameless Greg luster called Lady lapetus had also taken a front seat and was already taking notes. What of, Nina had no idea. Probably juicy daydreams. Or delusions, since she was one of those Greg/Sara shippers. Nina liked the happy little chipmunk - as she liked to call him, though not to his face, since chipmunks still had teeth - as much as the next one, but Sara needed a man and Grissom was all that and lovebunny too.

"What do you think this class will be about?" Lady lapetus asked, looking vaguely bored.

"Forensics. All that filler stuff in-between the Sara-Grissom stares of love," Nina said dismissively, then remembered the bodies in the basement. "Also, possibly how many different gruesome ways a body can be mutilated."

"Lovely."

The rest of the students began to slowly drift in, most looking somewhat reserved, given what past classes had brought. Considering that, Nina decided that maybe she should be a little bit wary after all. There had been certain incidents in the past that would call for caution, after all.

Maybe that was as much as lesson as everything else they were being taught.

There was a loud, loud buzz as Grissom entered, looking such a way thatNina could only classify it as darkly determined.

"This is Forensics 101," he announced without much more introduction. "Causes of death, determining causes of death, collection of evidence, evidence analysis, evidence treatment - everything we really do at work instead of spinning the bottle and playing truth or dare on tax payers' money. To start with, all of you please put on your latex gloves."

"But you don't always wear them on the show!" Adriana protested. "Besides, you look more angsty in just skin."

"That was on the TV show. This is a University," Grissom replied sternly. "Gloves. Now."

"He's so hot when he's dominating," Adriana said dreamily and Nina could only nod. She put her gloves on, wondering if she could think up kinky uses of such gloves and center a fanfic around it. Anything was good enough excuse for smut if the author was only willing, after all.

"And here is Dave with the body," Grissom declared happily, as the door opened. "The body of evidence is often the body as evidence. We will begin there."

"Ew," Nina muttered to herself, recognizing one of the specimens from the basement of ewness.

"Can anyone tell me how we begin to determine how long this man has been dead?"

Kay rose a hand, beaming. "You see if he's a stiffie!"

"You sound like you were taught Forensics by Ecklie," Grissom muttered, but did nod. "Yes. Rigor mortis, a stiffening of the muscles caused by a build-up of lactic acid, occurs after about three hours. This is because the cells can no longer get a supply of oxygen, but continue to Ørespire without it. After about 36 hours, the cells die and decompose and rigor mortis ceases. However, before that, body temprature can be used to determine time of death within the first 24 hours when the temprature drops at a gradual rate."

He paused, noticing a few green faces. "You get used to the smell. Next body please, Dave."

The next body was another 'friend' of Nina's, but an even greater friend of insects, serving as both home and meal. She fought back an urge to barf.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Grissom said with affection. "We spend a lifetime thinking of bugs at the end of the foodchain while we think ourselves at thetop of it, but in the end, they get us."

"Fascinating," Nina echoed. She could think of a few more fitting words. Maybe Sara should dress up as a bug sometime, that would at least get his attention.

"Flies arrive at a corpse at an predictable rate, at least under particular environmental conditions, and are thus an invaluable forensic tool when a body is not discovered within the first stages of decomposition," Grissom went on. "Entomology is your friend."

"I prefer my friends to have two feet and buzz less," Kay groaned, as one particular fly seemed to have left his dead friend for the loveliness of her ear.

"You've hurt its feelings," Grissom said sadly, and if with sarcasm, Nina certainly couldn't detect it.

Grissom was about to call David in with another specimin, but suddenly the entire university rocked as if struck by an earthquake. Students unfamiliar with such events shrieked in dismay, while a few just calmly climbed under their desks.

The temblor was short, and the PA system crackled to life. "Ahem, sorry about that," Archie's voice sounded from the speakers. "Look's like we had a small canonquake. We're trying to track down the source, but it might take a few minutes." The speaker cut out.

"Well," Grissom said, "I think it might be important for us to find out what's changed. Let's go to the one of the auditorums; other students should meet us there."

The students filed out of the classroom after Grissom, and not a few of them nearly lost their breakfasts over the large metal tub Dave was prepairing to wheel in. It smelled hideous and looked worse, and most were happy they wouldn't have to find out what it was just yet.

II

Theresa wasn't sure if she wanted to jump for joy or blow a gasket. She hadn't been scheduled for Grissom's Forensics 101 morning class—she would be taking it in the afternoon—so she had availed herself of the opportunity to scan the Internet for the latest information on how CSI's sixth season was going.

On one hand, there was Warrick out of the picture. Which was good. On the other...well, she didn't even want to think about the other.

She traveled with several other studence to the large auditorium where Ecklie had told the loitering students they should meet, after admonishing them for not working on their assignments (as if that was the purpose of a University, hah!)

As the groups were seated, Theresa noted that her Hated Arch Rival was a little green around the gills. She was curious why, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with The One True Path of Light and Twu Wuv which she was most assuredly not following.

Miss PA stood at the front on the stage and was tapping a microphone. "Don't be alarmed. We've tracked down the source of the canonquake, and it appears to be a mild one. Just a slight aberation, as it were. Archie will explain it for you." She stood out of the way and allowed Archie to approach the mike.

While the rest were mainly focused on Archie, one student happened to look over to the side of the stage, where Warrick was standing. He was holding hands with something...something indistinct. There seemed to be a chalk outline around it, defineing a human shape, but inside was just mist. The student did see a wedding ring on Warrick's hand, but just raised an eyebrow; as a Gil/Nick 'shipper, Warrick's relationships hardly mattered to her. Unless they were with Grissom, of course, and then she'd have to get nasty. All in the name of true man-on-man hotness.

Archie adjusted the mike and said, "Okay, like Miss PA said, it was just a minor canonquake. In fact, it's something that might get explained some time, but since it just sort of happened without notice, it triggered a quake. The CSI Graveyard shift has been reunited. Without an explanation, it contradicts established canon, hence the quake. Anyway, make note of it."

While Archie was speaking, the rest of the OFUCSI staff had made their exits and were swiftly traveling to the staff section. Archie was probably going to hurt them for stranding him, but they wanted out.

They knew what was coming next.

A student blurted out, "I saw that! And Catherine said that Warrick was always a fantasy of hers. Take that GCRs!"

A collective gasp echoed through the room.

The student who had seen Warrick piped up. "And Warrick's married now. I guess that about wraps up the Yo!Bling."

The gasp turned to an outraged roar.

And then chairs started sailing through the air. A full-blown 'ship war had begun. Students shouted, screamed insults at one another, gloated, and generally wreaked havoc in the auditorium.

Archie ducked a flying book and wished he were anywhere else but where he was. He wondered if he could teleport away like a Power Ranger. Crawling under the stage, he cursed fate for making him so sensitive to canonquakes. Then...he formed a plan.

He was staff. He was a teacher. When the students had all successfully landed one another in the university hospital, he would just use the student database to find out what 'ship each student was on and force them to write a million word essay on the virtues of an opposing 'ship. It would be simplicity itself.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be caught in a 'ship war. It gave him all manner of devious ideas.