For the thousandth time since evening fell, she curses Luke Cage for being so stupid as to make Harlem’s safety dependent on him. That idiot really thought that not only would he not be corrupted, but that nothing could kill him. He should’ve remembered, Misty yells within her head. He should’ve remembered they live in a world where aliens once invaded Manhattan, where a great blue blob once erupted from the ground in Missouri, and where they themselves once faced down undead ninjas. He should’ve realized there were going to be things he wouldn’t be immune to any more than the rest of half the world’s population had been.
There’s still no actual confirmation he’s dead. But there’s no way he wouldn’t have made his still being alive known by now. Nothing from his friend Sugar either, and Misty’s been in touch his wife more than once.
When she walks into her office, three people are waiting, and she only knows two of them, Wolfe and Meyer. The third, a young black man, steps forward. “Good morning, Captain Knight. Jeter Barry. I’m here on behalf of Acting Deputy Chief Strieber. He wants a report from all the precincts.”
Misty laughs; she has to. “What does he want me to say? I just spent the night traveling from multiple arson sites to reports of store windows being smashed open for the second time in 24 hours, to three different murders, all of them people with connections to organized crime-this time.”
“We’ve been gathering together numbers,” Meyer offers, and Misty notes the thick folder she’s holding. “Incidents reported, arrests made, things like that.”
“That should make him happy,” Misty adds; this man Barry looks young enough to maybe not know that. “I can give you the latest on the arson case too; give me a chance to write this all down?”
Wolfe is kind enough to beckon Barry out with a “Let me show you something.” As Misty writes, she once again recreates the arson in her head. Only this time, she expands the setting out, visualizing how the arsonists might have gotten to where the fires had been started, through the cars and such that have been there since their owners died. Also how long it would’ve taken them to prepare everything beforehand. An hour or so at the very least, and that would be if whoever’s bidding they’d done it at (they don’t know who’s alive there either) decided what to do as soon as they were confident that Harlem’s Hero was dead.
When she’s done with most of it, she looks up at Meyer, and says, “He’ll want to know if everyone’s accounted for.”
“Jake’s in the hospital,” she responds. “Beaten to a pulp, from what I heard, but he’ll live. As for Alice…” She shakes her head. “I don’t think we’ll ever have it confirmed, but…”
Misty’s resigned herself over the latter already; it’s actually a relief to hear the former’s alive, though it’s not just anyone who can just beat him up like that. Though she is a bit annoyed when Barry chooses that moment to peer back in, with a, “You were lucky. Out in Brooklyn one of the precincts had only five people still alive.”
“If you’re asking if we can spare anyone, I’m afraid the answer will be no,” she says, and as if to punctuate her point, two phones ring at once from two different offices. Barely have those calls been answered when a third starts going off. Ten seconds of listening to the responses and Misty’s pretty sure they’re reporting three different incidents, at least one a shooting. “Try Chinatown,” she offers. “Their current vigilante is still alive.”
As she stands up, she lightly places the fingers of the bionic arm on the highest point of her desk so she can lean into them and take weight off the rest of her limbs without making it obvious. It’s a trick she learned after the promotion, to help conceal exhaustion.
Her printer’s been broken for days; she’s had to send it to another one. When they hear that one start working, Wolfe calls, “Over here, Mr. Barry.”
When he’s gone again, Meyer leans over and murmurs, “Any idea what you’re going to do with everyone? Keep in mind most of us haven’t slept much.”
Misty’s trying to, though it’s not easy when she hasn’t either. “I know where I’m going to do with Herrera; that’s a start.” If things get really desperate, she supposes she can quietly ask Colleen to come back up, but even she’s only one person with one fist once again, now, and with her own neighborhood to worry about.
She looks up at the map of Harlem she keeps pinned within her easy eyesight. When she looks at it, she can still see options, solutions for the questions immediately at hand. But mostly, she’s seeing blood.