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For The Lost
Jul. 23rd, 2021 09:32 pm[You don't last long as a cop if you can't keep your head, can't spot a liar, can't notice patterns. Not anywhere, especially not where Benitez cut his teeth in Manhattan South, which - before the flu came - had the highest per-capita crime rate and third-highest per-capita homicide rate in the city.
Benitez has noticed a pattern, buried in the reports before him. Working a desk isn't the same as working the street, but feelings come back to him all the same. The numbers, the reports - something creeps up in his throat. The words come off the page and take on a life of their own, like a newly broken lock on a tenement door - a warning of horrors and dangers behind.
He pauses as he reads one sentence, ruffling a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. He re-reads it - then takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.
They're losing people. Not to the flu, that's a given - even though Kandel says she'll have a vaccine out soon - but in the sense that they just...disappear. Here one moment, gone the next. Not at the rate that would create a panic - maybe a half-dozen a month - and most of them are civilians by the outposts, but some have been right out of the BoO. Some bodies turn up, but not nearly enough to account for even a fraction of the lost.
It's too steady. Too consistent. People don't disappear like this unless someone makes them disappear.
He hesitates - then snaps a rubber band around the report and heads off, looking for Lindianne.]
Benitez has noticed a pattern, buried in the reports before him. Working a desk isn't the same as working the street, but feelings come back to him all the same. The numbers, the reports - something creeps up in his throat. The words come off the page and take on a life of their own, like a newly broken lock on a tenement door - a warning of horrors and dangers behind.
He pauses as he reads one sentence, ruffling a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. He re-reads it - then takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.
They're losing people. Not to the flu, that's a given - even though Kandel says she'll have a vaccine out soon - but in the sense that they just...disappear. Here one moment, gone the next. Not at the rate that would create a panic - maybe a half-dozen a month - and most of them are civilians by the outposts, but some have been right out of the BoO. Some bodies turn up, but not nearly enough to account for even a fraction of the lost.
It's too steady. Too consistent. People don't disappear like this unless someone makes them disappear.
He hesitates - then snaps a rubber band around the report and heads off, looking for Lindianne.]
