The Squinterns

A Boy in a Tree

"Check for insect pupa and larva. See what kind of medications and or drugs might've been in his system" says Brennan.

"He was wearing this." says Zack, pulling  a chain off the neck. Angela inspects it. "Catholic boy." she decides.

"One by two forceps." orders Dr. Brennan. Zack passes them to me and I give them to Brennan. She pulls something bloody out of the victim's skull.

"What is that?" I ask.

"Cochlear implant." replies Brennan. "Looks like the birds were trying to get it."

"That would set a boy apart from the others, being deaf." says Angela.

"Get a serial number." Brennan orders Zack.

"I'll get X-rays and 3-D imaging of the entire skeleton." says Angela.

"I didn't talk to anybody in high school. I didn't kill myself." says Zack.

"I was three years younger than everyone and probably talked to too many people." I say, examining an almost nonexistent anomaly on the victim's right phalange. "And that wasn't a high school. That was an experimental eugenics program."

"What do you mean it's not a suicide?" asks Booth, charging up to the platform. The alarm goes off and a guard stops him. "What the hell is that?" he asks, gesturing to the beeping alarm."

Zack swipes his card, shutting off the alarm. "We can't have just anyone stepping on to the forensics platform and contaminating all the boring details." says Brennan.

"Boring details-" Booth jumps. "Do no push me kid." he says to Zack angrily. "Boring details was my signal word for you to stop talking, okay? And I want my own card." says Booth.

"I want my own gun." says Brennan.

"Last time you had a gun, you shot someone." argues Booth.

"He was a bad guy." counters Zack.

"Okay, look. Who's our victim?" asks Booth tiredly.

"All the boring details?" I smirk.

"Okay, let it go." Booth says. "move on."

"Tell'em Bones." I say.

"Don't call me Bones." she says.

"We traced the cochlear implant to Dr. Maurice Ledbetter at Cedars-Sinai who placed it in a boy named Nestor Olivos." says Zack.

Booth flips some pages on his clipboard. "Mr. Olivos, student visa, son of a Venezuelan Ambassador." he says. "What else?"

"You want all the boring details?" asks Bones.

"Let it go, Bones." replies Booth.

"Don't call me Bones." says Bones angrily, taking the x-ray out of Booth's hands. She takes a breath. "The boy's hyoid bone is broken." she says.

"Strangulation death, the hyoid's always broken." says Booth.

"In adults. This was a boy." says Zack.

"His hyoid is flexible, unbreakable." says Bones.

"Well maybe the kid's got some Venezuelan brittle bone syndrome." says Booth. I roll my eyes, and Bones, Zack, and I exchange glances. "What, I'm just trying to help." says Booth guiltily. "So, you're saying he was murdered?"

"No, I'm saying I don't know what happened to he boy because I don't have all the facts." says Brennan.

Booth's, Brennan's, and my cell phone all start to ring. We chack them and all glance at eachother. Booth raises his eyebrows, asking which of us was stuck arguing with the head of security from Hanover Prep with Bones. We do a quick rock paper scissors, and my paper beats his rock. I pump my fist and he follows Dr. Brennan off of the platform.