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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.]

(no subject)

[The tattoo shop at the BoO started like a burr on a wool sock. They didn't have space for it before Lindianne and the AFOs cleared out all the shit from the post office, and they sure didn't have time for it before the 42nd ID got here and they had the manpower to push back the Cleaners and the Rikers enough for some tangible breathing room.

It wasn't much to look at when it started - there was only one chair, and the only artist was an old Master Sergeant from the intel shop who ran a tattoo parlor in civilian life - but it's going full swing now that Kandel's antivirals and vaccines have proven to be an unmitigated success. Things have stabilized down here in Manhattan enough that they're talking about putting apartments back up for sale by the end of the month. What stability operations are left to conduct are all down in DC. People are taking the time to get ink to commemorate both the good times and the bad while it's still fresh in their minds.

In time, what's left of the world will brush all of this off like it was a bad dream.

The shop has two rows of chairs now. The pros are off working on one side, the trainees still under supervision on the other, all underneath a stenciled sign that reads 42 ID TATTOO SHOP - YOU DREAM IT, WE INK IT. A sign below that says NO KANJI/CHINESE CHARACTERS. Classic rock blares from a stereo somewhere in the back as the tattoo machines buzz, doing work putting ink into the skin as the scents of disinfectant and stale cigarette smoke linger in the air.

Standing at the reception desk is the bossman himself. He's off-duty, with a perma-stained skivvy shirt up top, his uniform blouse down below, and his Army-issue boots below those. As Lindianne walks up, he looks up from the art portfolio he's organizing, sheaves of laminated tat pictures in a black binder that could stun a small mammal with the right hit. He looks her over once, the bad lighting exaggerating the bags under his eyes - he's 35, but could pass for 50. That's been going around.]

Help you, miss?

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."