Chapter 414: Parker Industries Legal Team
"No heartbeat. No respiration. Brain activity is almost nonexistent."
"What happened to him? Not a mark on him but he's dying?"
"His skin is too hard. The needle won't--"
"Forget the needle! Get the defibrillator ready!"
Metropolitan General was in chaos. Luke Cage lay flat on a gurney, eyes closed, while doctors and nurses sprinted alongside him toward the trauma bay, shouting over each other as they fought to keep him alive.
Jessica Jones sat on a waiting room bench with her denim jacket pulled around her shoulders, a lock of hair singed into a stiff, fused clump by the heat. She didn't bother with it. She kept one hand pressed over her mouth and watched the trauma bay doors swing shut behind Luke.
She had no idea what had happened. It was supposed to be an ordinary night.
A nurse stopped and asked if she needed to be examined. Jessica shook her head and said she was fine.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, three uniformed officers from the Manhattan precinct positioned themselves in front of her, their expressions set and serious.
"Are you Ms. Jones? Jessica Jones?"
"Yes." Jessica looked up at them.
"We've just come from your apartment building," said the one in the middle, a heavyset man with a thick auburn beard whose words came out clipped and deliberate. "We need to ask you a few questions."
Jessica pulled the jacket closed and looked at him. "Was anyone else in the building hurt?"
The officer on the left was younger than the other two, with dark green eyes. "Fortunately, no. Your neighbors were shaken up but uninjured. The blast was contained almost entirely to your unit. It was a shaped charge."
The officer on the right had a scar running down his cheek that made him look harder than his voice suggested. Of the three, he spoke the most gently. "Your neighbors were clear about that. The damage to surrounding units was minimal. The force was very precisely directed." He paused. "Your boyfriend Luke Cage was at the center of it."
"We haven't determined the cause yet. Do you have any idea what might have happened? Anyone you or Luke may have had trouble with? Anyone connected to Hell's Kitchen?"
Jessica shook her head slowly. She couldn't think of anyone.
The explosion had been too sudden, too violent. Every time she closed her eyes she saw it again, so she was working hard not to blink.
"Your boyfriend is presenting with two completely contradictory conditions," the scarred officer said. "Critical internal trauma, but no external wounds whatsoever. Can you explain that?"
"I-- he-- I--" The words wouldn't come.
She and Luke had never worn masks the way Batman or Daredevil did. But they'd also been careful never to demonstrate what they could do in front of people. They'd kept it quiet. It had seemed like the smarter approach.
"Take your time," the officer said. His tone was measured and patient and left no room for refusal.
Jessica's mind went sideways. Even if she told them everything -- Luke's strength, his unbreakable skin -- it wouldn't help them find whoever did this. It would just create problems. For both of them. Problems that wouldn't stop.
She was still trying to figure out what to say when footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. The crisp, deliberate rhythm of hard-soled dress shoes on hospital tile, moving quickly and with purpose.
Jessica looked past the officers. Through the gap between their shoulders she could make out a group of men in suits carrying briefcases, heading directly toward her. One of them assessed the scene in a single glance and stepped smoothly between Jessica and the three officers, hand raised in a gesture that was polite and completely firm.
Jessica had no idea who any of them were. She watched the situation move somewhere well outside anything she recognized as normal.
The man in front spoke before any of the officers could.
"Excuse me. We're the legal team representing Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Until Mr. Cage regains consciousness, my client retains the right to remain silent and to have counsel present for any questioning." He continued without pause, threading in enough procedural language that Jessica could only follow half of it. "My client also requires rest and a psychological evaluation to assess her fitness to give a statement at this time. She is not available for questioning."
The three officers looked at Jessica for a long moment. Then they turned and left without another word.
Jessica exhaled. "Thank you. I -- thank you. I just don't know when I hired you."
"We're from the Parker Industries legal department." The man at the front offered his hand. "My name is Ellington. Ms. Alice dispatched us to Metropolitan General as soon as the explosion was reported. She said you would need assistance."
Jessica stared at him. "Parker Industries? Alice?"
She didn't remember having any connection to that company. Her first instinct was suspicion -- law firms that appeared uninvited at hospitals in the middle of the night didn't usually do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
"Please don't worry, Ms. Jones. We are Parker Industries legal staff." Ellington said it again, clearly. "There is no charge to you."
Jessica shook her head slowly. She genuinely didn't know anyone named Alice at Parker Industries. But the timing, the way they'd stepped in -- she was grateful in a way she didn't have words for. The weight that had been pressing behind her sternum since the ambulance ride eased slightly, just slightly, for the first time.
The lawyers exchanged a brief look. Ellington stayed beside Jessica. The others moved to the hallway outside Luke's trauma bay and waited.
Half an hour passed.
The bay door opened from the inside.
"Family of--"
The doctor got no further. Ellington was already speaking.
"Is the patient out of danger?"
The doctor blinked. "Yes. His skin made intravenous access impossible, so we had to administer medication through a respiratory tube. Fortunately he isn't an electrical insulator -- the defibrillator worked. He's stable."
Ellington didn't waste time on pleasantries. He set his briefcase on a nearby chair, opened it, and produced a sheaf of documents.
"These authorize the transfer of Luke Cage to another facility. Please review them."
Jessica had made it to the doorway by then. Luke was on his back in the bed with tubes taped to his face, monitors running, a rack of IV bags standing beside him. The tears came before she could do anything about it.
She hadn't processed what Ellington was saying. Then another team of doctors and nurses came through the corridor at speed with a second gurney, and before Jessica could speak, Luke and all his equipment were being moved out of the room in a rapid, coordinated transfer that left Metropolitan General's staff blinking at each other.
Jessica caught up with it and broke into a run after him.
"Where are they taking him?" she demanded, finding Ellington matching her pace beside her. "Where is Luke going?"
"A Parker Industries medical facility," Ellington said. "The equipment there is more advanced than Metropolitan General."
***
30+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces