The faces in front of me are that of a slender woman in her 40's and a younger lady somewhere near her late teens. Both look cold and distressed.
"It's 3 a.m." I curtly remind them.
"They told me you had abilities but I didn't know you could do that." the older woman says, bewildered. I recognise her.
"What?"
"Well," she says, looking offended. They always look offended, no matter what I do or don't do. "We never knocked!"
I look them up and down and sigh. This again.
"I need to sleep. Come back in the morning."
As I start to push the door the teenager stops it. It takes more effort to restrain my strength then it does to maintain the force against the door.
"It's okay honey," assures the woman, who I now recognise to be one of my employers for a case I was working when this all started.
"No mom," the teenager asserts. "I'm not leaving until she listens to us."
She turns to me and with her smug, rounded teenage face looks me dead in the eye.
"It's urgent." she says, hand still pressed against the partially boarded-up door. I push it a little harder from my side until she pulls back her hand with surprise.
"Look outside honey." I hiss at her. I know, I'll probably regret that. "The world is falling apart and not even the Avengers are here to mop things up. Everything's urgent. Now go home."
The older woman, with a tight dress that comes down to her ankles, grabs her daughter around the shoulders and shoots a defensive glare back at me. Some sensation of regret hits me. I sigh.
"Come back tomorrow and I'll see what I can do."
She shakes her head and leads the teenager away.
I wake up on the couch with a headache. When I get up I scan past a folder under a couple of old bottles. It's about the husband of the woman at my door last night - the case was nothing new: he started coming home late, she found lipstick stains on his shirts, etc. etc. Years 'll pass but New York never changes. I hadn't noticed them in any of the messages I did actually listen to but no doubt Mr Warner has now mysteriously gone missing. His wife and step-daughter think they're special, I guess. They start paying you and suddenly they think they're entitled to unexpected house calls. With the vain hope of not ruining whatever shreds of professionalism I claim to hold, I clear the clutter from my desk. If they're coming back today, it's better for it to be tidy. The phone starts to ring and I rip the cable from the wall. Tidy and quiet.
I shuffle over to the kitchen and pull open the fridge door. Mostly empty. What better metaphor for this shit than a half-empty fridge? I grab the only slice of pizza not growing mould and rest against the counter. Before long, my cellphone starts to buzz. Trish. I turn it to silent.
The scientists are having a field day with this whole semi-extinction thing. By the end of the first few days they'd sussed out that it was about half the population that vaporised, but it took them a while to agree that ours wasn't the only species that might have been caught up in all this. That's a very human thing to do, I get it. You'd have thought all the bird watchers in the world got their word in pretty quickly but I suppose their reports might have been pushed to the side a little bit here.
Anyway, plenty of people are getting their money's worth with the whole thing. All the UFO freaks were particularly pleased when a whole load of debris started burning up in the atmosphere. They're all making a fortune, or at least keeping themselves so fascinated that they don't care whether they're making any money or not. Disaster's good for some people. Not for me. Normal business has stopped. Potential cases are all the same, but far quicker to solve. And like always, people don't want to pay for news they don't want to hear; but this time I'm getting tired of debt collecting from widows and widowers. Grief is an ugly thing to have to fight with, especially when the whole of society is trying desperately to hold itself together.
People are asking for the Avengers.
No matter how stupid you might think I am, I do realise that I should be helping. Late at night I think about calling that lawyer, Murdock, or that stuck up asshole Danny Rand, or maybe even Luke (if I could get past the embarrassment), and assembling them for another vaguely successful team. But I'm stuck here. I couldn't even tell you if the others are still alive. Hell, I barely know if -
Never mind.
I should go out to help them. People may be incredibly dumb but they'll eventually appreciate someone's limits. Even if it's stepping out of the shadows to clear some wreckage or knock a few guys out keeping the peace...
But then I think of throwing glass through an imaginary Kilgrave in my living room. I think of waking in the night to see Vido crying at my door, and me shutting the door on him. I think of all the deaths on me. The car crash. My mother. Hope Shlottman.
I was never a hero. No matter what I do, it's never enough. And besides, this is way, way beyond my capabilities.
I can't help them.
I don't know who can, but it's not me.
I'll try to be one a thousand times over but it's a fact I can't change.
My eyes cast to the clock by my liquor cabinet. 9:47am. Too early to drink. I was expecting the woman and her kid to have shown up by now. I think about Vido. He's with child protective services at the moment - his mom never came to get him. His grandma can't help him either, on account of the fact that she died a couple months ago, and all. And then Oscar... Sucks to be that kid. I know how the orphan thing feels. My thoughts are rudely interrupted by a knock on the door.
I swing it open expectantly.
It's not them.
"Hello?" says an old lady clutching a handbag.
"Uhh. Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'm Nora. Nora Sutcliffe."
She tries to hand me what looks like a photograph of her and her cat. I don't extend my hand. I don't really want old people smell on me.
"My cat Roger hasn't been home for a week," she trembles slightly when she talks. I think she's put off by the broken window. I'm glad it's working. "They told me you could help?"
"I'm sorry Mrs Sutcliffe, now isn't really a good time."
"It's Ms Sutcliffe, actually. Oh well - I'm quite an old lady, you see, and well, when you lose a friend you've known for so long then, then well you really would do anything to get them back, and -"
"What did you say your cat's name was?"
"Well the grandkids call him Lucky but his name's really Roger, like that Captain America fellow's last name, you know?"
"And Roger was where, when you last saw him?"
"Well I went into the kitchen to make myself some tea. I'd left the window open in the sitting room, because my George had been round and he said it was all stuffy. Then when I went back in..."
"He was gone? Was there a small pile of dust in the sitting room when you came back in?"
"Well now that you mention it, it was a little dustier than usual. You don't think -"
"Well then, I hate to tell you Mrs Sutcliffe but Lucky wasn't so lucky after all. "
I close the door on her. Her grumbles extend for quite some time before she gives up and goes home. Now in reality, I did her a favour. Taking on the case of a deluded grandmother in search for her dead cat would be highly unethical. Believe it or not, I don't like to exploit people. I wish I did, because I could really use the money right now. It's surprising that money is still holding its worth, yes, with world in chaos and all, but it's still what people are asking for when you try to take some milk from your nearest grocery store. Or bartering for the last bottle of scotch in some speakeasy's storage room.
I decide to listen to some of the phone messages and sit down at my desk. It takes a few minutes before I realise why the phone isn't working - the cable still lies a few feet from its socket where I'd pulled it out of before. When I plug it back in, it makes a reassuring beep and the screen lights up. I open voicemail. You have 32 new messages. And this not counting last night.
To skip message, key - First message: Received at 1:07am, May 11th: Hi, I really hope I have the right number. Is this Jessica Jones? I'm sorry it's so late. The police basically told me to get lost but I really need help. I'd know if my brother - Message Skipped. Next message: Received at 5:58am, May 11th: Hey freak, I hope you have your door nailed shut right now because we're gonna - Message deleted. Next message: Received at 7:24am, May 11th: Miss Jones? Someone gave me this number. My son hasn't been home in two weeks, and before you say it, no, it wasn't due to whatever this was. I'm begging you -
"Kids leave home." I mumble as I throw the phone back onto the desk. "Lucky them."
I skim through the files on the husband of the woman at my door last night again. David Warner, short guy who wears glasses too big for his face. Manages a garage a little out of town. Screwing his secretary - see photos attached. Also screwing a barista at his morning coffee stop. More importantly, screwing over his wife. I didn't get the chance to reveal yet. Maybe she found out and accidentally killed him. That'd be pretty urgent. Warner married into the family a couple of years ago and now lives with Susanne Warner and a daughter from one of her earlier marriages. The daughter's 18 and apparently was to be kept out of this whole affair. That would explain why this is the first time I met her. I wonder if she knows now, or if mommy's as good at keeping secrets as her step-dad is.
I'll give them a few days and then I'll call them.
By night time I've found my way through half a bottle of something and a cake I found in some bakery's dumpster outside. Desperate times, huh? I've been lucky today - only 2 visitors and none of them imaginary or creepy as hell. The TV is playing in the background - it helps to block some of the noise of the telephone. I decided not to keep tearing it out of the wall because who knows, I might get something important through there one day. The news broadcast playing talks about all the orphaned children and horrendous overcrowding in whichever empty Walmart store they've been shoved into. I think of Vido.
"Ughh, I know!" I shout at the TV, burying my face into a couch pillow like a teenager. The reel keeps going in the background.
Guilt is a wondrous thing.