| A Day in the life of Professor DT, Authored by SM
Here they come again. Professor DT could hear the yelling outside coming closer. Inwardly he sighed, because he originally planned to reside in this NT building in order to take a break from dodging the undead and patching people up. He was looking forward to an easy day of reading and relieving the storage boxes of syringes, but it seems the zombies had different plans. The nearby buildings were already showing a large increase of wounded refugees. Indeed the mall as fallen…again.
As expected, the influx of refugees soon diluted the supporting staff. The Professor, who was at first checking his map for the nearest library, was finally convinced to stay and help by another insistent doctor. Briefly he contemplated changing his wardrobe every now and then so that his medical experience wouldn’t be so easy to pick out from a crowd.
He approached the makeshift infirmary that just moments before was nothing more than an office. His thoughts traveled from his wardrobe to the lack of proper supplies for this sort of thing. There was quite a list of missing materials: properly sterilized equipment, anesthetic, better lighting, clean water to able to be spare for washing instead of drinking…
Few people noticed the assassin come in, and if there were any, Professor DT wasn’t one of them. He was dressed in the fashion of aristocracy, an odd sight in the rubble that is Malton. A top hat covered his soft black hair, which in turn partially obscured a face that looked to be of mixed European and Asian heritage. The blood stains and rips in his clothing did not subtract from his confident and perhaps even arrogant stride. However, as he sauntered his way past, the Professor caught the faint scent of opium. As if the scent itself gave the doctor’s thoughts a jumpstart, he turned and grabbed the stranger’s tailcoat, his words stuck in his throat while he contemplated what to call this man.
Immediately the assassin grabbed the front of Professor DT’s coat and shoved the muzzle of a pistol at his torso. Professor DT had the uncomfortable feeling he saw this person somewhere before. Green eyes tinted with gold regarded the masked man carefully. The gaze traveled up and down, noticing that the Professor carried no weapon except what sharp objects his profession expected. “A doctor,” the assassin muttered, most likely to himself. He released the Professor and the gun disappeared into the pockets of the tailcoat. “What do you want?”
Spared the trouble of addressing the man, Professor DT made his request. “I thought I caught the scent of opium. Might you inform me where—“
The aristocrat laughed before the doctor finished his sentence. “If one has enough money and know the wrong sort of people, one might find such things easier to come by. Some dealers find the quarantine beneficial to business. I think I know what you want from it though. Here, you may have this as an apology because I cannot tell you who to get it from.” He gave the Professor a small box. While the recipient opened it to examine its contents, the aristocrat added, “Just be mindful of how you use it. Opium is not the same as just morphine.”
Professor DT closed the box and put it in his pockets. “Thank you,” he said after a length of silence. “I will put it to good use. Though, why help me so readily?” The assassin blinked. “I mean, why answer an unusual request so easily? Surely such commodities don’t come easily even to resourceful men like you.”
“I was once a doctor much like yourself. I had youth and nimble fingers on my side, as well as a strong tendency towards vengeance.” He smirked, a smile that was both innocent and devilish at the same time. “Once you start killing, there’s no going back. It was a selfish motivation that persuaded me to help you; maybe I get some sense of self redemption if I aid you in saving others while I myself cannot turn back from a murderer’s path.”
Professor DT wondered if this stranger would say the same thing if he knew who he saved his syringes for. Then he remembered where he saw the assassin. He recalled the shadow of a figure and the odd colored eyes shining from behind dark bangs. One of SM’s associates, he was, in which case Professor DT’s white mask left no question as to who owned his loyalty. The assassin, however, seemed not to mind.
“Let your life be measured by the lives you save instead of the blood you spill.” The assassin pulled the brim of his hat lower over his eyes and walked off to the back of the building. Professor DT didn’t see when he left the building, but he was gone by the time the Professor finished his tasks and had the time to look. There was only a fresh corpse, which the Professor dumped without a thought.
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