survivors_of_new_york | The Question

The Question

In the old days, the James Farley Post Office was the beating heart of New York City's postal services. Now it's the beating heart of a very different system. Day in and day out, the fight to reclaim the city goes on from within it. Patrols go out. Civilians stagger in. Supplies flow in and out like the mail trucks used to do.

It isn't built for holding prisoners like the NYPD's facilities are. But there are enough rooms deep in the bowels of the building that can be adapted for that. A few armed JTF officers stand guard in a constant rotation. No one's risking the prisoners inside getting loose and wreaking havoc. One guard is drumming his fingers nervously on the stock of his rifle.

In one cell: Martinez sits at a table with his head in his hands. He doesn't get up except to pace. He's stayed quiet this entire time, barely even acknowledging the personnel outside. (He asks once, just once, for 'Eric'.) The model prisoner.

In the next cell over: Keller is the opposite. He rages. Slams his fists against the walls until his knuckles bleed and leave streaks. He presses his face against the glass in the door and hurls insults at the guard outside. He knows what's waiting for him on the streets. LaRae doesn't give second chances.

In the last cell: Torch yells over Keller's racket to 'shut it man, we ain't telling them shit'. He doesn't snarl like a caged animal. He doesn't posture at the guard outside. He merely keeps winding Keller up more and more. No sense in starting a fight. He didn't get a chance.

And up at the top of the stairs, Lindianne Parker rolls her eyes. "Jesus. What a racket."

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They've all lost a lot.

New York's never going to be the same after this is over. No one who lives through this is going to be the same. That's an undeniable fact. It doesn't matter what the future looks like. It's never going to be the same.

Lindianne hesitates for a moment, then squares her shoulders. "Ultimately, it's their call," she says without a bit of nervousness. "But... I promise, I'll do my best to bring them in." She can't promise more than that.

Folding her hands on the table, she looks at Martinez with a somber expression. "So... let's start at the top." Ferro. "I know Ra- Eric said he wouldn't tell about this. Neither will we. You have my word."

A brief smile makes it way on to her face. "Besides... this is my home town, too."

There's a bit of hesitation from Martinez.

"Well...okay."

That's less of an assurance than he would've liked, but it'll have to do.

He leans forward, resting his hands on the table as he twiddles his thumbs. He exhales through his nose.

"Joe's taken over an abandoned construction site in the East Village. It's where the napalm for our tanks gets made. There's...forty, maybe fifty guys there at a time. Most of the time, he's with his boys planning our next moves, but sometimes he'll lead a patrol out to - clean up the neighborhood."

He averts his eyes and rubs the back of his neck, as though aware of how macabre a euphemism that's becoming.

"I don't remember an address or anything. But you guys have helicopters, right? It should be pretty easy to spot from the air."

'Clean up the neighborhood', here meaning 'incinerate people alive'. Lindianne's face twists up into a disapproving scowl before she forces her expression back to neutral. It's a struggle. This man has blood on his hands. She can't forgive him for what he's done.

(But doesn't she have blood on her hands, too, in the end? The circumstances are different but she's still killed for what she wants.)

"Yeah. We have choppers." Her voice is flat. She takes a moment to inhale deeply. The emotion comes back into her tone. "I don't know if Ferro's going to want to listen to me, Mister Martinez. We aren't popular as of late." Not a lot of people take the JTF seriously as of late.

"You're... going to have to answer for what you've done," she adds in the gentlest tone possible. "Eric and I, we'll put in a good word for you. It might not seem like much, but... I'm glad you chose to come in."

She's glad she didn't have to kill him.

Martinez bows his head for a beat.

Then:

"Two weeks before the bug hit, we celebrated my niece's quinceañera at Taqueria on Saint Mark's. There was a party, drinks, my whole family was there - it was a good time. She'd been looking forward to it for years."

And now he looks up, his eyes misting over.

"The next week, my daughter told me she was getting married. Dominican boy from Washington Heights. Good-looking kid, treated her right, good job in a welding shop..." He shakes his head. "She was talking about the penthouse on Fifth. I kept telling her that we couldn't afford it, that we'd find something just as good closer to home."

He's quiet - sniffles, runs a hand over his face.

"First it was my cousins. We thought it was just the flu, so we joked about them screwing around on the town at night. We thought it'd blow over. The next day it was my nieces and nephews."

He inhales, steeling himself for what comes next.

"The day after that, they were all dead. On Friday night I held my baby girl's hand while the fever cooked her brain."

Another shake of the head. "She was delirious. Didn't recognize me, didn't know where she was."

He bites his lip.

A shift of his head, and he's looking right into Lindianne's eyes.

"Everyone's got a breaking point. That was mine."

He nods to the door. "That's all I got."

Lindianne stands from the table, eyes dark. Her mouth is pulled into a thin line. She doesn't flinch away when Martinez looks her in the eyes. She merely bites down on the inside of her cheek. She turns to go.

Pauses with one hand against the door.

"...The bastard who did this to us will pay." Her voice is choked. She swallows against a sudden rock in her throat and continues. "We'll find him. And he'll answer for what he's done. That I can promise you."

There are too many stories like Martinez's. Too many people have lost their loved ones. Too many good people have died. One more may not seem like much. But to someone, that loss is their entire world.

"...And I'm sorry." For your loss. For everything. For the sorry state of the world. For not being there to save your family.

For not being there in time.

It isn't until they're outside of Martinez's cell that Lindianne's armor finally cracks. She reaches out to slam a fist against the wall. "Damn it. God damn it!" She takes a moment to lean there, shoulders trembling. But she swallows her pride long enough to regain composure.

"...I'm going to kill whoever caused this."

Voodoo lays a hand on Lindianne's shoulder, his expression stoic. It's a moment or two before he speaks, his voice lowered.

"This island ain't big enough for them to hide on. Not from us."

A curt nod.

"We'll find 'em."

Then, he nods to the stairs. She's put some eyes on the two of them, but it's nothing they can't handle - most of them are looking elsewhere by now, anyway.

"Hungry?"

"We'll find him, and he's gonna wish he was dead."

She reaches back to press her hand on top of Voodoo's. For a few moments, she stands there like that. Then she straightens up, drops her hands back to her sides, and heaves a sigh.

(She's back on an even keel when she turns to face him, even if her eyes are still prickling.)

"Starving," she responds. "And I really need some coffee. Faye better not have drunk it all." She flashes a brief, wavering smile at the joke. "Think they'd give me an extra cup if I said pretty please?"

It'd certainly go a long way to solving the Keller-induced headache pounding behind her eyes.

Voodoo returns her smile with one of his own, a little less wavering but equally brief. "Can't hurt, right?" He nods to the stairs. "C'mon."

They're halfway down the stairs when Captain Benitez rounds the corner. He glances up at them and stops. "Oh. Was just lookin' for you guys."

He scratches the back of his head. "Listen, no rush, but report to the Situation Room as soon as you can. Kandel thinks she's got something and won't stop bugging Faye about it."

"What is it?" Voodoo asks.

"No clue. But she's been talking a lot with that civilian you pulled from the LMB." With a half-shrug: "Apparently he was a virologist at Columbia. Go figure, right?"

Well now. That's interesting.

"You mean the guy that Keener's boys were terrorizing? The one with Rada? That guy is a virologist?" There's a pause, long enough to be unsettling. But afterwards, she shakes her head and 'tsk's in disapproval.

No. Not the cause.

"Why the hell would LMB want a virologist? Hell, what would the First Wave want with the guy?" The answer is obvious as soon as the question comes out of her mouth. She blanches.

"...They need him as much as we need Kandel's. They may be doing their own fieldwork."

Their own research.

Benitez nods. "Yeah, that's about the size of it. What they're aiming to accomplish with all that fieldwork, we don't know, but...it sure can't be good news if they're involved."

One of the JTF guys walks down the stairs to whisper something in Benitez's ear. "Yeah, yeah - one sec." He looks to Lindianne again. "That's all I got for you guys right now. Do what you gotta do, but - do me a favor and don't keep Kandel waiting?"

Doctor Kandel is not the model of a patient doctor.

Lindianne cracks a faint little smile and salutes Benitez with two fingers. "Got it. Thanks, Captain."

The thought of the LMB doing their own research has ruined her appetite. It can't be for the same reason as the JTF. Bliss and his men aren't that magnanimous. And Keener is a straight-up psycho.

She keeps rolling the thought over and over in her head as she and Voodoo head for food. Even as she sips her (lukewarm) coffee, the thought won't go away.

It can't be for a good cause. And it can't be allowed to continue. Not forever.

Voodoo's just as quiet as Lindianne - it would appear much of the same thoughts are running through his head. This time of day is seeing the beginnings of the "lunch rush", as it were - civilians are starting to filter in to claim their rations. There are still some who gawk at Voodoo and Lindianne, particularly the new arrivals - the rest simply move along down the line.

It's a little eerie, just how quickly they've adapted to their world ending around them.

"Rabbit got a call from his wife yesterday," Voodoo says after a sip of coffee. "She and the kids are okay. They're taking quarantine seriously in Dam Neck. The base has been locked down for weeks."

He shrugs. "It ain't no cure, but it's working. For now."

Lindianne is busy staring off at a point just over Voodoo's head. His words jar her out of her thoughts. "Hmm? Oh. Man, that's good." There's a pause. "I'm glad his family's okay." She takes a sip of coffee, swallows, and then manages to give him a genuine smile. "If things are holding firm out there, then maybe..."

Then maybe San Francisco hasn't fallen. Maybe she'll get a call one of these days from her own family. It's a silly thought, of course. No one in the Parker household knows what she really does for a living.

Behind Voodoo, she spends a moment watching the line of civilians filter through for their rations. She sees the two children from Yankee Stadium. Further down the line, just barely visible, she sees Rana.

And that definitely perks Lindianne right up.

"We'll get there. Eventually. Then we can go home, all of us."

Voodoo nods once, smiling. "Yeah. Ain't nothin' to it."

When the two of them finally make their way to the Situation Room, Kandel is - well, she's not ranting and raving, but she's fixated on something she's pretty passionate about to Faye. The other SEALs and the civilian they rescued are all assembled. Rhodes and Benitez are nowhere to be found - they must be preoccupied with other work.

Kandel stops and nods to Lindianne as she and Voodoo enter the room. "Agent." She gestures to the man, now cleaned up some from when they rescued him. "I don't expect you've heard of him, but - this is Firouz Massumi. He's - well, was, I suppose - the department chair of microbiology and immunology at the Columbia medical school."

Massumi turns and nods to Lindianne, his expression weary. "I was just comparing my notes with Doctor Kandel. Samples of the pathogen that I was able to obtain during my time with the LMB confirmed my suspicions - shared by Doctor Kandel - that it was a manufactured virus. Genome analysis revealed transgenic modification of variola major with genes from yersinia pestis, hantavirus, ebola, and others."

Kandel butts in. "And we both know there's only one person on the island with both the know-how and the fanaticism to whip up something like this."

Massumi sighs. "His name is Gordon Amherst. He's..." A beat. "...troubled."

Kandel scoffs. "Insane is more like it. He's been advocating on behalf of fringe environmentalists ever since he got his degree."

Lindianne nods in hello to Kandel, but that's it. She's never really gotten on that well with the doctor, head injury checkups notwithstanding. "Doc."

She glances over at the man, then turns her head away. He hasn't exactly coated himself in glory after what happened at the LMB motor pool.

What does impress her, however, is everything he says after that. She looks at him. Purses her lips. And when he says that name, everything screeches to a halt.

"Gordon Amherst." Something ugly flashes across Lindianne's face.

"Insane or not... you know what we have to do."

Faye holds a hand up. "Hold on a minute, agent," she says. "We've got no leads on Amherst's location. In a blackout like this, he could be anywhere. He might not even be on the island anymore."

Kandel crosses her arms, raising one eyebrow in a silent prompt. "But...?"

Faye doesn't roll her eyes, but she comes close. "But we've got a location on his apartment in Hell's Kitchen. We've received reports of civilians still hiding there in the complex. A contingent of Cleaners is moving in to burn them out. You and the SEALs are to move in, secure the area, and get those civilians to safety."

Another scoff from Kandel. "You're kidding, right? How about Amherst's notes and hard drives? You know, so we can make a vaccine? Shouldn't those get priority?"

"Those come second. If we don't make the civilians our first priority, we've defeated ourselves as an organization."

"If we don't get those notes, there might not be civilians left to save."

The arguing doesn't help the headache behind her eyes. Maybe that's why Lindianne interjects the second Kandel and Faye aren't at each other's throats. "We'll do both! We'll do both of them, so calm down." She's braced herself against the table in the center of the room. She stares at Kandel. Then she stares at Faye.

A clearing of the throat. "We'll get the intel and save the civilians," she adds in a much quieter voice. "Have we ever failed before, Faye? Come on. You know us." You know me. She gives a quick, humorless little smile. Confidence is what's needed here.

"If we move in, we clear a path back behind us."

And that means the civilians will be able to escape alive.

There's a beat as Kandel and Faye stare at each other. Then, Kandel straightens her stance, nodding once as she places her hands on her hips. "I can live with that. But I need that data intact."

"And you'll get it." Faye rubs one temple as she stands, looking down at the map, then at Lindianne.

"This'll be tricky. Much of the apartment block has been destroyed since the outbreak. Our blueprints are practically useless as anything more than general guidelines. On top of that, we have no idea of the size or precise location of the unit Ferro has sent in to clear the block out."

She rubs her chin. "Still...Martinez's surrender, along with some of his subordinates, raises an interesting question."

And now, with her one unbandaged eye, she looks to Lindianne. "Agent, I want a no-bullshit assessment from you. What would it take to bring those Cleaners in alive?"

Kandel's jaw drops. "You're kidding. Martinez's surrender was one thing, but am I to understand we're going to attempt to waste JTF resources housing and feeding a bunch of unrepentant pyromaniacs?"

"They're mentally ill, Doctor. We owe it to them to at least try to help them get better." And now she looks back to Lindianne, waiting for a response.

It's not a hard sell to make. Lindianne's not a bleeding heart. But the stories she's heard, the deaths she's seen, it's enough to move even the stoniest heart.

(He held his daughter's hand while the fever cooked her alive. Their parents died a few days before help arrived. The only thing left of her mother is a bloodied headband.)

"Maybe some of them are a threat." She looks away from Faye, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. "But there's gotta be guys like Martinez in there, too. Guys who lost everything. Desperate people." People who are hurting. Who are still able to be reached. "Everyone has their breaking point," she echoes.

But very few people are beyond hope.

She folds her arms, then looks up at Faye with a nod. "We owe it to them to try and reach them." Now she glances over at Kandel with a frown.

"Come on, Doc. Martinez isn't a fluke. There's gotta be more."

With an aggravated groan, Kandel shakes her head and holds up her hands in acquiescence. "Fine, fine. Just don't blame me when you get a faceful of napalm for your attempts at battlefield shrink."

Faye lets out a low hum, rubbing her chin as the SEALs watch it all unfold. "This'll be tricky. They don't trust us, and they've especially taken a disliking to you," she says, nodding to Lindianne. "That'll have to change if we want to bring them in. I know Rabbit brought Martinez in - good work there, by the way - but we can't count on them not lumping him and the other SEALs in with us before long."

She checks her watch. "At the same time, we can't debate this forever if we want to save those civilians, so we can't waste too much time thinking about it."

Faye looks to the SEALs, then to Lindianne. "Judge will be outside in ten minutes. If you can think of something between now and then, good. If not - do the best you can with what you have. Mother, the floor is yours."

Edited 2016-06-19 08:33 (UTC)

She nods. Steps back to give Mother the floor.

She leans against the wall and watches quietly. It's understandable that she isn't a popular face. Lindianne has put the hurt on more than a few of the locals. She's ruined things for the Rikers and the Cleaners. It's getting harder and harder for her to show her face outside without attracting undue attention.

But the civilians like her. She's seen it in the rare smile thrown her way. That's enough to make it all worthwhile.

Even as Mother's time to speak comes, her mind is racing. How does she do this without getting killed? How does she do this without having to kill any more than necessary?

How do you convince someone who knows you only for violence that you come in peace?

She's staring at Faye and Kandel, but she's not seeing them. Her mind is somewhere else.

When Mother steps up, he keeps his piece short and sweet.

"Like Faye said, this isn't cut and dry," he says. "Bottom line: civilians take priority. After that comes Amherst's notes. If we can bring these Cleaners in breathing, great. If they want to meet their maker instead, that's their choice."

He produces blueprints of a large apartment complex with a large rooftop segregated into sections of varying shapes and sizes. The northernmost section circled in grease pencil. "This is Amherst's apartment complex." He taps the circled section. "Amherst's apartment is number 532, here - and there's no telling how many civilians and Cleaners are between it and the entrance. So we'll make a racket to draw them out, then clear it from top to bottom."

He sweeps around the apartment complex with one finger. "Judge will make a preliminary pass of the complex. We'll broadcast calls for compliance before we fast-rope down on the south roof, here," he says, tapping the map. "The Cleaners either comply or focus their attention on us instead of whatever civilians might still be hiding out."

He looks to each of them in turn.

"Expect the complex to be in a state of disrepair. Plan for engagements at wildly varying ranges and gear up to minimize overpenetration. Voodoo, no '60. We meet back here in five. Dismissed."

Five minutes.

It's a hectic five minutes. It's a blur. Lindianne scrambles to the armory, looking for something, anything that will give her a leg up. She swaps her gear, stashing the Division-issued explosives she's been lugging around with her. Non-lethality is the name of the game. Non-lethality and a willingness to risk her life in the line of fire.

When she reappears in the Situation Room, she has a first aid kit slung on her pack. There are a row of stun grenades strapped to her shoulder strap. She's gone with the least lethal equipment that she can find on short notice. (It can still wreck someone's day if they make themselves a threat.) Her usual PSL rifle is coming along. But the FAL? that's staying at base.

Best to make every shot count. There's no telling what might be coming down on their heads shortly.

She leans against the wall, pulling the brim of her Mets cap down over her eyes. There's no tactical gear here this time. She's dressed like the prototypical college student. Maybe that harmless edge will be enough to convince the Cleaners that she doesn't mean to kill them all. That she actually is willing to let them live.

It's going to have to be enough.

The SEALs beat her to it - Preacher, Voodoo, and Mother are all sporting carbines, although Voodoo looks less-than-happy to be leaving his precious M60 back at base yet again. Rabbit, for his part, has what looks like a hastily-accurized Heckler & Koch rifle with a collapsible stock and hybrid sights on top. They've shared Lindianne's predilection for stun grenades, although theirs are tucked into more discreet places - grenade pouches, at the small of their back, and such.

Mother leans over the blueprints of the apartment complex one last time. "Judge is outside. I'll make this quick."

He taps the south roof again. "Myself, Voodoo, and Preacher will rope out of the bird first. Parker, you and Rabbit stay in the bird until we secure top deck. You're our eyes in the sky - anything looks shifty, I want to know about it. Questions?"

"Yeah."

Lindianne leans forward, squinting down at the map of the complex. It looks straight-forward enough. But who knows what kind of state the complex is in? Hopefully the buildings are sound enough to keep standing. The last thing any of them want is to be buried under rubble.

"If they're willing to back down, how do we secure them?" She looks up at Mother. "Judge isn't exactly the biggest bird in the sky," she says with a sheepish little smile. "Do we keep them on-site? Or do we send in JTF guys?"

She isn't asking the biggest question: what do we do if something goes wrong? It can't. She's not going to be sitting in a chopper watching her team get roasted by Cleaners. That can't happen. That won't happen.

"I mean... we're just 5 people, Mother. That's a lot of ground to hold even for us."

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