survivors_of_new_york | For The Lost

[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.]

Threaded | Flat

[Lindianne isn't too hard to find. For once, she isn't glued to AFO Neptune's hip. She's taken up a spot in the intel wing listening to the radio over a pair of reclaimed headphones that have clearly seen better days. It takes a while for her to look up in Benitez's directions. Rhodes is nearby, giving her the mother of all stink-eyes. She turns a dial, presses the headset tighter against her head, then nods in approval to the radio tech sitting at her side.]

Sounds good. Keep me posted if you get any more interference on this frequency.

[Something- movement, most likely- finally draws her attention towards Benitez. She cocks her head to one side, then hangs the headset around her neck. The ISAC beacon on her wrist glows the same orange as always. The radio chatter continues unabated.]

Captain? [A pause.] There something you need? You've got that look in your eye.

[She may not have been NYPD, but Lindianne's got the sharp eyes of a sniper and the second sense of a first-responder. She knows when something's wrong.]

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