“Tonight on Broad Vision Network. The semi finals of the Bristol Talent Trials.” A commercial on the vid screen said. “This years trials have been grueling and a number of raw talents have stood out. They maybe not house hold names, but they possibly will be. This week it is a live event, where these future talent wielders will have a various number of missions. Lets see who can make the cut and continue and who will lose there shot at completing the trials.”
Marcus looked up at the vid screen and cursed inwardly at now knowing the reason why his boss had pushed the nights work on him. He was staying home to watch the fucking trials, and it was also why the department was abandoned. The janitor didn’t even show up for his shift, and he was here doing the preparations for the showing and cremation of the unknown body that was sent over from the government center morgue.
He could of gone to the manager to complain, but he needed the money, and his boss had already agreed to pay him extra for him taking care of anything that came in tonight. He already had plenty of experience with the preparation of the bodies. This wasn’t the first time his boss had him do everything by himself, but this was the first time he was totally alone with out supervision.
Marcus had already cleaned most of the rooms in his area, and the last corpse had already been placed in cold storage for the cremation. He had finished the job yesterday, but didn’t report it because for every corpse he completed today he got a bonus. So he delayed the paperwork till this morning, and picked up a extra 1,000 credits. It maybe wasn’t the most ethical thing he could do, but his boss wasn’t ethical at all.
He had finished two others earlier in the evening, but they were private contracts and there were no bonuses or strict guidelines to follow. His boss wouldn’t earn anything extra for having done them, and that meant there was no way to get a bonus for completing them. He still received excellent rating for his performance which would snag him a little extra money for the month.
He glanced back up at the vid screen as they were going over the seventy four talents still left in the trials. All of them were top grade candidates from the local high schools, and of course the were dazzling stars in the making. He was sure that there was probably one or two from the academy he went too, but in the trials everybody’s identity was protected so he really didn’t know. It was for this reason on every day of the trial his academy gave the students the time off to watch.
Marcus sighed and took out his packed lunch and ate it, before going back to work. He mostly had everything complete and all the rooms cleaned and the implements already placed back in the proper places when his wrist communicator beeped. Marcus stopped and pulled up his interface and saw it was a alert that a new corpse was coming in from the government center. This made him somewhat happy, because a corpse from there meant that he could get a extra bonus.
He quickly made his way to the preparation room and started pulling out the tools and chemicals for the his work. He would have to clean up the body and log samples of genetics for the government. Unlike private customers, there was a list of different steps he had to do and to get payment they had to all be done.
He had taken out everything and prepared it at least fifteen minutes before the hover car appeared at the reception area. He used the communication terminal to open reception bay 1 and two men placed a capsule with the body in the reception bay. The work droids approached the capsule and took it away, while one of the men entered the information they had on the subject. It only took them a minute to insert the information card in the data hub, and then he went back in the hover car and left.
Marcus assigned the corpse to the small preparation room, because it was easier to clean. The room was used as the training room that Marcus had learned in. So he felt comfortable with the layout, and locations of all the equipment. The droids placed the capsule between two arms and locked it in place, and they left the room. Marcus put on the frock and face mask, and entered the room seeing the capsule in the center.
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He walked over and pulled up the information on the corpse, and groaned at the fact it was labeled as a class s villain. This meant that there was a number of steps he had to do, and it would increase the time it took by at least a half hour. He didn’t have anything else to do, but the chemicals he had to use weren’t pleasant and the breathing mask didn’t completely protect him from the smells.
He could only sigh as he opened up the capsule, causing he top of the capsule to slide apart joining the bottom half. This left a flat work surface for the body to lay on, and for him to clean up. The body was definitely male but most of it was covered in blood. Marcus first step was to clean up the body using the suction pads. The pads would break down the dried liquids and absorb them, and with this body there was quite a lot of blood and gore on him.
The process was gross and tedious, but this was something that Marcus did every day. The corpse was already stripped of everything so he started with the feet and worked his way up the body cleaning every part of it carefully and meticulously. The man was remarkably ordinary and so was his body structure, and when Marcus had finished with cleaning the man didn’t look like a Class S villain.
The body itself was mostly undamaged except for three wounds on his chest and one that looked to be on his cranium. He carefully noted and took evidence of the wounds, which were still open, and then started the long process of documentation for the government. The tasks on the list were strict and Marcus followed them to the letter of the rule, and documented each step.
Time seemed to go by slowly as he finished each step, and finally he finished the documentation and analyzation of the corpse. He added the information to the file, and could only sigh with relief as the information was accepted and his performance was calculated.
The moment he finished the information upload the capsule slowly closed as the top half slid shut forming a complete capsule again. His communication bracelet beeped and his performance grade was given. He could only smile at the excellent rating, which was the second best rating he could get. Perfect was the only one higher, and that grade was very rare and he didn’t know what was involved to get it.
He walked out of the preparation room, but then stopped as he tossed his frock away. He still had to clean it again, and he didn’t know if another delivery would be showing up so he decided to do it right away. The process was easy but boring as he got out the sterilization equipment and started. The droids had already taken the capsule away to cold storage, and he started to run the purifiers and chemical scrubbers.
They could have had the droids do this type of work, but he believed they did it as a sort of torment to the assistants. It was part of the hazing process that all the assistants had to go through, and he felt sweat build as he pushed the scrubber over the floor. He was just finishing up when he felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck and he reached up out of instinct to touch it. He didn’t feel anything on it, but he could still feel the tingle sensation there.
“Maybe I am overworking myself to much.” Marcus thought as he realized he was feeling tired.
He pushed on and finished the cleaning of the room, and after that he put away everything before he left and headed back to the break room. He was surprised that his shift was almost over, and he checked his notifications and saw that nothing else came in. His shift would be ending soon, and he could go back to his dorm room and get some sleep before he would have to go back to the virtual campus and study for his high school finals.
His grades were average at best and most likely would be below average after the exams. It wasn’t that he didn’t study, because he did, but it was just that there was so much information and he couldn’t comprehend much of it. So much of it had to do with talent, and he didn’t have the ability to practice the skills and rituals described.
Marcus stretched and still felt the twinge on the back of his neck and went to the break room to rest. The trials were still on, but he didn’t care and decided to study from his communication bracelet instead. His shift finally ended and he draged his tired body back to his dorm provided by the facility and cleaned up and went directly to sleep.