Seeing Jessica off with an awkward glance, Chris once again stared at the collectible card with what was practically an X-ray gaze. But no matter how hard the guy tried, "James Howlett" never came back.
He'd played along with Jessica's reassurances, of course, but he didn't believe a word of it.
Chris had definitely seen a new face on his card. And nobody was going to convince him otherwise. The man had been as real as the old stains on his door.
Maybe it was some kind of ghost? It wasn't for nothing that this "phantom" had a specific name, right? Maybe he was trying to tell him something.
Sighing and tucking the cards into his pocket, Chris turned back toward his apartment with some hesitation. Any desire to sleep had abandoned him long ago. Specifically at the moment some uninvited guest had appeared on his most prized possession. After something like that, the only thing you'd want to do was use the bathroom.
In short, deciding that a walk — the third attempt of the day — wouldn't hurt, Chris resolved to head at least as far as his workplace. It was just a few dozen meters away. Maybe Mr. Kramer was still there? In his current state Chris obviously couldn't move anything heavy, but the register shouldn't give him any trouble. Maybe it would take his mind off things. The day had been genuinely rough.
"Three hundred bucks," the drowsy orderly yawned almost inaudibly. "Not a cent less..."
"Listen," Jessica narrowed her eyes, suppressing the urge to simply beat the employee sitting across from her. "I'll give you a hundred. That's enough..."
"No way..." The orderly stopped short and leaned back slightly when Jessica crushed the bell on the reception desk. With one hand she turned the metal object into a piece of scrap. The attendant swallowed nervously, got the message, but decided not to push his luck. "Money up front."
Gritting her teeth and her heart, Jessica handed over the crumpled bill and watched the orderly disappear into the back rooms with a murderous glare.
Another hundred bucks, spent on — you could say — the first person she'd met.
Jessica Jones had never considered herself an altruist or someone who helped strangers out of the goodness of their heart. "Pure kindness" was simply not her thing.
Perhaps there had been moments in her life when she'd genuinely wanted to help people, but...
Nothing good had come of it. You could say that her ship called "youthful openness" had sailed straight into a cliff of harsh reality.
From that moment Jessica had sworn off helping anyone. Nobody, ever. And certainly not for free.
So why was Jessica spending her entire last paycheck — money she had planned to turn into whiskey — on some... drifter?
Jessica couldn't answer that question precisely, even to herself.
Though even here she was lying to herself.
Christopher Wallace was simply... like her. Not in his puppy-like personality, but in his circumstances.
Jessica's childhood had been far from carefree, but Chris had her beat there. And somehow he hadn't turned bitter.
In Chris she saw... the same kind of ship she had once been, full of surging energy and drive. And she also saw the cliffs he would inevitably, and painfully, crash into. There was no other way in their rotten world.
Jessica wanted very much to close her eyes to it. To ignore the hopeful gaze. To simply drown all her pangs of conscience in whiskey, the way she always did. But...
Jessica, whatever she might seem like to others, was an incredibly fragile person.
And this time she couldn't overcome herself.
The returning orderly with a folder in hand pulled her out of her, as always, depressive thoughts.
"Read it here, in front of me," he dropped the folder in front of her and settled back into his seat, returning to his computer game. "You can't take it with you."
"Got it," Jessica nodded and picked up the folder.
Jessica, for all her being a pathological alcoholic, prided herself on her detective skills. And to truly know a person, you needed to know their past, their inner world.
Naturally, reading someone's "private" files didn't trouble her conscience. She had spent her last remaining funds, saved up for drinking! You could say she'd sacrificed a piece of her soul! She deserved a reward for that.
And so Jessica, having used getting drinks as an excuse, had come to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. All for the sake of one very interesting former patient.
"Well now, my Biggie Smalls," Jessica murmured under her breath. "Show me what you've been hiding from me..."
Medical Record No. 1128
Name: Christopher George Latore Wallace...
"Who are you?" An outraged Chris addressed the group of movers at his workplace. "What do you think you're doing?!"
A spontaneous walk ending in something extraordinary was most likely going to become a new and permanent feature of his life. Chris couldn't explain it any other way — a whole group of movers busily going about their business, hauling everything out of "his" shop.
Naturally, Chris couldn't just walk past or stay quiet.
"Kid," the foreman or crew leader of the whole operation, cigarette between his teeth, frowned. "Don't get in the way of us unloading our property."
"What are you talking about?!" Chris's irritation was building fast. "This shop belongs to Mr. Kramer!"
"Not anymore."
Those two words from the stranger hit him like a bucket of cold water. Now he began looking more carefully at the "movers."
First: all white and fairly "menacing." Stubble on their chins, scattered tattoos and scars. Which meant the group most likely belonged to the criminal underworld. And white gangsters in Harlem were a fairly rare sight. Which meant the Irish were back.
"Understood," Chris tried to keep the tremor out of his voice, slowly turning around. Maybe he could retreat without losses and regroup with Jessica later...
Except only in movies do the dumb villains let you walk away.
"Stop."
That familiar voice, cutting right to the bone, froze him in place. Like a puppet, Chris turned his head and saw a familiar face that should have been haunting his nightmares. Well, if he'd managed to sleep at all today.
"Johnny," the foreman addressed Chris's recent killer. "You know him?"
"I do," Johnny shook his head in surprise, looking Chris up and down. "I shot him..."
"In the arm?" The other man glanced pointedly at the cast.
"I'm not sure," Johnny frowned. "You're coming with me."
"I d-don't n-need tr-trouble..." Chris managed to bleat out somehow.
"I don't care," Johnny roughly grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the shop.
Name: Christopher George Latore Wallace...
Age: 18 (At time of discharge)
Sex: Male
Date of birth: August 22, 1988
Place of residence prior to hospitalization: Ray of Hope Orphanage, New York, USA
Period of stay at the clinic: Ages 14 to 18
There was nothing surprising or extraordinary in this data. Well, aside from the "famous" name, of course. Jessica was still chuckling to herself about that.
But the next section demanded close attention...
Medical History
Early manifestations:
From early childhood, Christopher Wallace displayed excessive imagination and fantasy, which was noted by the orphanage staff. He frequently spoke of an "imaginary father" who, according to him, gave him advice and supported him. However, this "father" had never existed in reality, as Christopher had been at the orphanage since birth. No figures who could have served as a "prototype" for the "father" were ever observed.
"A father invented out of loneliness?" Jessica sank into thought, analyzing the received information at full speed. "Strange, of course, but that's no reason to put a boy in a psychiatric ward."
Honestly, Jessica was trying to find traces of... some kind of injustice. Some form of abuse or an excessive overreach of authority. But so far everything was coming across as fairly organic.
Problems in adolescence:
In adolescence, the patient's condition deteriorated. He began experiencing severe and frequent headaches, accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations. Christopher complained of "unreadable" text that he saw before his eyes and heard in his head. These hallucinations frequently led to severe emotional distress and anxiety.
"There it is!" Jessica thought with a surge of excitement. "That's where it begins!"
Jessica began recalling all the strange moments in Chris's behavior.
"Assuming that Chris's superpower of 'revival' is direct evidence that absolutely ALL of his psychological problems have a real basis in reality..." Jessica closed her eyes, trying to picture Chris in the grip of a panic attack and his reaction to her questions about his revival ability. "He definitely knows where the number 'ten' in his lives counter comes from. Sometimes his gaze drifts or loses focus. Especially in moments when he's asked about his remaining lives. Maybe the 'hallucinations' are the answer to that? The number simply... appears in his head or before his eyes. Though... in adolescence he couldn't decipher them. Some kind of 'maturity' limitation? Unclear..."
But the next part of his "history" made Jessica frown with concern.
The situation was aggravated by uncontrolled outbursts of aggression. The patient displayed sharp and unpredictable mood changes, frequently falling into rage without apparent cause. In moments of anger he became uncontrollable, causing physical harm to himself and those around him. Such outbursts were what led to Christopher Wallace being transferred to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. In these cases, medical staff intervention was required to calm him.
"Chris wasn't put in a psychiatric ward for no reason... And government experiments have nothing to do with it, if the medical record is to be believed." Jessica bit her lip. "Chris is dangerous. Genuinely dangerous to those around him..."
"Hm..." The Irish gang leader looked Chris over with skepticism. "I thought he was supposed to be dead."
"Same!" Johnny chimed in with relief, the moment the other person present at "that" incident confirmed his suspicions. "The bullet definitely didn't hit his arm!"
And Chris... Chris couldn't have cared less about their little exchange that was deciding his fate.
Because in the corner of the back room that served as the only office, lay a body wrapped in garbage bags. Most of the torso and head were covered in black plastic, but the leather shoes — one of the few things Mr. Kramer had always refused to economize on — were visible.
"You..." Chris whispered in a hollow voice. "You killed him."
"That's right," the Irish gang leader nodded. "And you're going with him..."
Raising his pistol, he pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
Hand of God: Twelve Great Labors [9/12]
"WHAT THE HELL?!" The Irish gang leader leapt to his feet. "Why the hell did that piece of trash come back from the dead?!"
SYNCHRONIZATION: 9%
Phantasm [Rank: C]: Mad Surge
RESONANCE!
SYNCHRONIZATION: 11% (STAGE II)
"I'm going to turn you into pulp!" Chris roared in fury and tried to get up. "I'll kill every last one of you, you bastards!"
"Johnny!"
"On it, boss!"
BOOM!
A pistol shot once again rang out in the cramped space. Except now the gang leader and his right hand froze with their mouths hanging open at what they saw. Because...
The bullet, which had entered Chris's forehead by a centimeter, simply stopped there. Only to fall harmlessly to the ground a second later, leaving behind a wound that wasn't pretty.
"Die!" Chris roared and closed the distance to Johnny — his first killer — in a single lightning lunge.
This time the swing came out perfectly. Almost on an instinctive level, his fist followed the most optimal path.
A fraction of a second and...
BOOM!
Johnny's head burst like a watermelon, and his body dropped straight down.
"Th-this..." The gang leader was slowly backing toward the exit. "Th-this..."
"THIS! IS YOUR!" A completely unhinged Chris bellowed at the top of his lungs. "DEATH!"
SYNCHRONIZATION: 13%